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PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 
AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



LolDcU Lecture?! 



PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 



RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



BY 

PRINCE SERGE WOLKONSKY 




LAMSON, WOLFFE AND COMPANY 

BOSTON, NEW YORK AND LONDON 
JMDCCCXCVII 



Yd9i7 



'\^K\'\\-^'- 



^,A 



Copyright, 1897, 
By LAMSON, WOLFFE AND COMPANY. 

All rights reserved. 



Norixrooti 53tcss 

J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 

Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



No other history would I have than that of our fore- 
fathers such as God has willed it. 

POUSHKIN. 

In days of doubt, in days of distressing meditations 
on the fate of my country, — in thee alone I trust, O 
Russian language, — great, mighty, truthful, free. . . . 
It is impossible to disbelieve that such a language 
should not have been given to a great people. 

TOURGENIEFF. 



From February 5, 1896, till May 5, 1897, these Lecttires 
were wholly or partly delivered in 

Lowell Ijistittde, Bostoti. 
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
Cobunbia University, New York. 
Washington Club, Washington, D.C. 
University of Chicago. 
Steinway Hall, Chicago, III. 
Twentieth Century Club, Chicago, III, 
All Souls'' Church, Chicago, III. 
Art Mtiseum, St. Louis, Mo. 
Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Carnegie Hall, New York. 



There are two kinds ofrepresortatives 
in a university : the one represents the 
degree of culture in the country ; the 
other, its youthfubiess, its wants, its en- 
ergies, its passions. . . . The university 
is the best barotneter of a society. 

N. T. PIROGOFF. 



tn^o American tillnitjersfities 

TO PROFESSORS FOR THEIR KIND ENCOURAGEMENT 

TO STUDENTS FOR THEIR HEARTY RESPONSIVENESS 

IN SIGN OF GRATITUDE 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 

P. S. W. 



CONTENTS 

LECTURE I 
(Introductory) 

PAGE 

Foreign notions of Russia ; reasons for their scarcity. Our ob- 
ject. The jesthetical element in historical studies. Art as 
promoter of sociability. Nationalism or cosmopolitism? 

Bird's-eye view of Russian history from its origin to the pres- 
ent time . . . . . . . ... . I 

LECTURE II 

(862-1224) 

Two voices from antiquity. East and West in the destiny of 
European nations. Russia's beginning. The " Norman 
theory." Kiev and Byzantium. Vladimir and the baptism 
of Russia. Role of the monasteries. 

Ecclesiastical literature. Nestor and the annals. 

Popular literature — religious songs, epic songs. " The Word 
about Igor's Fights." 

The " Veche," the prince. Jaroslav the Wise and the " Rus- 
sian law." Vladimir Monomah and his "Will." Russia 
and Europe in the ante-Mongolian period .... 29 

LECTURE III 
(1224-1613) 

The Tarvar yoke. Europe and Asia — secular struggle. The 
rise and growth of Moscow. The policy of the first Mos- 
covian princes and the " collecting of the Russian land." 
Inner currents of social classes. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



John III — first sovereign of unified Russia. Diplomatic and 
commercial intercourse with Europe. 

John IV, the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia. A character- 
istic. Art in history and history in art. Intellectual cult- 
ure of the time. A parallel . . . . . .61 

LECTURE IV 
(1613-1725) 

The first Romanovs. Characteristic of the period. The Patri- 
arch Nikon and the "revision of the texts." Awakening 
of critical spirit. Foreign infiltration and inner reaction. 
The Court. The precursors. 

Peter the Great. His historical figure. Petefs campaigns. 
The reform, its methods, its spirit. Posterity and con- 
temporaries. Tsarevich Alexis. Peter's death. Division 
of national opinion. Intestine polemics on foreign soil . 93 

LECTURE V 
(1725-1796) 

The eighteenth century — significance of the date. Brief 
sketch from Peter I to Catherine II. The Academy of 
Science. Peter the Great's depositaries. Tatischev, Prince 
Kantemir. 

Lomonossov — the scientist, the poet. Russian pseudo- 
classicism — Soumarokov, Trediakofsky. Peter's reform 
under Empress Elizabeth. 

Accession of Catherine the Great. An autographical portrait. 
French philosophy in Russia. Pseudo-classicism — Der- 
javine. Satire — the Empress, Von Wiezin. "The Under- 
aged." On the threshold of the century .... 129 

LECTURE VI 

(1779-1837) 

Suddenness and many-sidedness of intellectual growth in the 
nineteenth century. New literary currents traced back into 



CONTENTS 



the eighteenth century : Novikov and the Moscovian drde. 
Europe's Hterary horizon at the opening of the century. 

Sentimentalism in Russia. Karamsin. " Letters of a Russian 
tourist." " Poor Lizzie " and the sentimental noveL The 
" History of the Russian State." Romanticism — Joukov- 
sky. A new sense in poetry. 

Poushkin. His literary career. His poetry — character of 
its beauty, testhetical excellence, and ethical height. His 
subject — life. Russian society in the first decades of the 
century. "Eugene Oneguin," — the novel, character of 
its charm. Poushkin's lyrical poetry — its chief features, 
many-sidedness, harmony. His language. Nationalism 
and universality . . . . . . . _ jge 

LECTURE Vn 

(1837-1861) 

An epoch of youth. Lermontov — romantic pessimism, par- 
allel with Poushkin. KoltzofF, — popular element in poetry. 
Literary and other aristocratism of the time (Nicholas I) . 

Gogol. Genesis of the naturalistic school. Poushkin and 
Gogol. Significance of Gogol's appearance. The writer 
and his torment. Gogol's laughter in its different stages. 
Place of the satire in national evolution. 

"The forties." The Moscow university. Belinsky — his 
influence as critic. Slavophiles and " Westernists." Sci- 
entific studies of national questions. Accession of Alex- 
ander II 



LECTURE VIII 
(1861-1896) 

'' The sixties." Alexander II and the emancipation of the 
serfs. Servitude in United States and Russia. Moral 
significance of the reform. The role of literature. The 
three chief representatives of the naturalistic school. 

Tourgenieff — the thinker overweighed by the artist. Rus- 
sian critique of the sixties. Tourgenieff 's "Fathers and 
Sons." Nihilism. 



205 



CONTENTS 



Dostoyevsky — the artist overweighed by the thinker. Dosto- 
yevsky's influence on his generation. Tourgenieff and 
Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky's teachings from the universal 
and the national point of view. 

Leo Tolstoi — the artist and the thinker in rivalry. Artistic 
power. Tolstoi's teachings. Spirit of dismemberment. 
" Tolstoists." Influence of his teaching — its negative 
character. Societies and individuals .... 237 



Chronological Index . . ■ 271 

Genealogical Table ........ 275 

Index of Names 277 



LECTURE I 

(Introductory) 

Foreign notions of Russia ; reasons for their scarcity. Our 
object. The sesthetical element in historical studies. Art as 
promoter of sociability. Nationalism or cosmopolitism ? 

Bird's-eye view of Russian history from its origin to the 
present time. 



LECTURE I 

Wherever there are outlets into celestial space, wherever is datiger, 
a?id aive, attd love, — there is Beatcty. — Emerson. 

WE have before us a task capable of render- 
ing us diffident in many respects. Within 
the short limits of a few lectures, I have 
to unroll before your eyes, and you — if only you agree 
to follow me — will have to run through the panoramic 
picture of the historical and literary development of a 
whole country ; a country which extends from the Bal- 
tic Sea to the Pacific, from the sunny vineyards of the 
Crimea facing Asia Minor to the frozen swamps of the 
Behring coast facing Alaska, from the snow and ice of 
the Norwegian shores down to the burning sands of 
Central Asia and to the heights of the Pamirs ; a country 
which in these limits represents a surface of 406,000 
square miles, i.e. forty-two times as big as the surface of 
France, or, to borrow the astronomical comparison of 
Humboldt, — who thought he could not find the equiva- 
lent on earth, — a surface which is equal to the surface 
of the full moon ; a country which takes the seventh 
part of the terrestrial globe, counts over 120,000,000 
inhabitants, and over a thousand years of history. 

In the few hours at our disposal for the development 

of our programme, there can be no question of presenting 

a complete course of Russian history and literature. We 

will endeavour to hold an uninterrupted thread of events, 

* 3 



4 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

but we cannot possibly devote equal attention to all the 
epochs we shall have to study, and even in those epochs 
which we may examine with more special attention we 
shall not be able to embrace the entire many-sidedness 
of historical life ; we shall have to abstract from each 
period that which constitutes its main characteristic, con- 
sidering that it is more useful and interesting to know 
much about one thing than little about many things. 

Therefore, you will have to excuse me if, for instance, 
the lecture on Peter the Great wall present a matter-of- 
fact character, whereas in the lecture on Catherine the 
Great the side of events will be almost absent in order 
to give place to the description of the intellectual and 
literary movements of the time. 

Once more, a coitrse of Russian history and literature 
is unrealizable in eight hours' time ; the only thing we 
may venture under such conditions is to gwo. pictures of 
Russian history and literature, connected, as far as pos- 
sible, by an uninterrupted thread of facts. 

But that which makes our task still harder is the fact 
that so little as yet is known about Russia abroad. Intend- 
ing to retrace Russia's historical growth before a foreign 
audience, I know that I shall have to raise up a good 
portion of the building before I reach a fact or a name 
which is universally known and which may enable me 
to form a link between our subject and the average 
cycle of knowledge of a well-educated foreigner. I 
know that through long historical periods we shall pro- 
ceed as in a voyage of discovery, and perhaps the name 
of Peter the Great, who appears after Russia had existed 
for eight hundred years, will be the first stone I can 
borrow from your edifice of universal history for our 
edifice of Russian history. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



Of course those events of Russian history which are 
closely interwoven with the general history of Europe 
are well known, but it is hardly to be supposed that 
their inner connection and their national evolution have 
been matters of study to the average foreign student. 
Just the same, and perhaps with more reason, in litera- 
ture. The fame of many a poet has crossed our fron- 
tier; the names of Gogol, Tourgenieff, Dostoyevsky, have 
flown over the ocean, and I do not know whether in any 
country more splendour surrounds the wonderful figure 
of Leo Tolstoi than here in America. And yet I 
think that the reciprocal relation of these authors 
cannot be gathered from the mere reading of their 
works ; their connection with certain foreign writers, 
their dependence upon the general literary movement 
in Western Europe, can be followed up, but the filiation 
of their own literary schools, and, above all, their con- 
nection with the historical, political, and intellectual 
development of their own country, cannot but escape 
the observation of the foreign reader. 

Thus even that which is generally known of Russian 
history or literature scarcely helps to form a sufficient 
idea either of our country or people or life. The sud- 
den interest in Russian writers which has broken out in 
these last twenty years is too recent to compensate for 
so many years of indifference. 

If we follow up the reasons why foreign countries 
have been, and, in many respects, are still, ignorant of 
our country, we shall find that they are of three differ- 
ent kinds. The first reason is historical. Only since 
Peter the Great, that is, for little over two hundred 
years, has Russia taken an active part in European his- 
tory ; before that, commercial relations, exchange of 



6 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

extraordinary embassies, and a few marriages of Russian 
princesses with foreign sovereigns in the very early 
period of our history, were the only occasions when 
Europe heard of Russia : Russia lived for herself and 
did not trouble about Europe. 

The^econd reason is philological. Western Europe 
has been divided among the two great families of the 
Aryan group : the Latin and the German. Their long 
cohabitation, commercial intermingling, and political 
intercourse helped them to know each other : any man, 
even if he knew no language but his own, felt an 
inborn relationship with all nations of his family, — 
consequently was philologically related to half Europe. 
This of course furthered, if I may say so, his historical 
sociability. The Russian language, though of the same 
great Aryan group, belongs to the Slavonic family ; 
therefore a Russian could feel no inborn relationship 
with any of the Western European nations. The 
antique Latin culture which has been the great unify- 
ing force which amalgamated the western nations of 
Europe, had not included Russia within its historical 
evolution. Russia had no direct intellectual inheritance 
from antiquity ; she received a portion of it by way 
of Byzantium, but she did not participate in the com- 
mon growth of European nations : before she had con- 
quered by force that which belonged to others by right 
of birth, she had been regarded as not belonging to the 
common European family. That sort of mistrust which 
is inspired by the mystery of an unknown language, 
had for a long time denied to Russia the social equality 
which other European nations granted to each other on 
the historical arena. 

The third reason of foreign ignorance of Russian 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



affairs is psychological. One of our writers said : " If 
you want an intelligent Englishman or Frenchman to 
talk nonsense, let him emit an opinion on Russia : it /^ 
is a subject which intoxicates him and at once clouds 
his intellect"! It would be injustice and ingratitude 
on our part to extend this judgment to the respectable 
works of men of science or travellers and explorers 
who devoted many years of their lives to the study of 
the history, literature, and institutions of our country, 
such as Ralston, Mackenzie Wallace, Leroy-Beauheu, 
Rambaud and others, whom we shall have occasion to 
quote ; but applied to the average traveller or novel- 
writer, exaggerated as it may seem, the judgment con- 
tains a good deal of truth. 

People usually form a certain amount of a prioi^i 
ideas of a country, and when they get there, rather 
than open their brains for new impressions and new 
influences, they are interested in taking notice of the 
slightest facts that can be registered as a confirmation 
of their ideas : they want, at any cost they want, reality 
to match their opinions. Instead of a voyage of dis- 
covery, it becomes a voyage of " constatations." I 
remember an American girl who frankly confessed that 
she did not like Russian novels representing Russian 
life ; she thought things they pictured were not original 
enough, lacking "local colour"; she much preferred 
English novels about Russia, they were so much more 
" Russian." This is characteristic. The " Russian novel " 
as known in English and French literature acquires a 
sort of exotic charm : snow and wolves and police 
agents, with the threatening prospect of Siberia in 
the background, give to the pictures of our human 

1 Prince Viazemsky, " Lettres d'un Veteran russe." 



8 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

passions that same varnish which other authors try to 
give them by transporting their stories into Central 
Africa or to New Zealand. By a strange tendency of 
their pen, or perhaps because they supplied the demand 
of the greater portion of their readers, these authors in 
the things they described — whether right or wrong — 
seemed to turn their attention exclusively in one direc- 
tion ; thus the name of our country came to possess the 
sad property of evoking horrible pictures of violence 
and slavery. We will not discuss — we are not here for 
polemics ; we will still less pay attention to the sensa- 
tional news spread by the daily press of those countries 
which are politically interested in exciting appetites to 
which our philosopher gives the picturesque appellation 
of "international cannibalism."^ 

For my part I hope, I am sure, that I stand before an 
audience which has not lost that divine gift, which is the 
faculty of admiration, which trusts the good elements of 
human nature, which believes in their triumphant march 
from the darkest ages to the light of the present day, and 
which knows that the history of a people, being the record 
of a laborious process whereby a portion of the great hu- 
man family obtained its national self-consciousness, is an 
honourable book, that it contains brilliant pages, glorious 
names, examples of virtue, and lessons which command 
respect. There is an uplifting spirit which emanates 
from all that is noble, great, and beautiful — wherever 
and whenever it happens ; and it is not a shallow feeling 
of narrow patriotism which actuates me when I say 
that this is the spirit which must guide us on our way 
through our subject; it is not in order to obtain a satis- 

^ VI. Solovioff, " Morality and Politics," in The National Question in 
Jiussia, St. Petersburg, 1891 (Russian). 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



faction of national pride, not because I wish to declaim 
at your expense patriotic rhapsodies which I know can 
touch no chords in a foreign heart, but because that up- 
lifting spirit is the only element which gives to accounts 
of national history an educational value from the uni- 
versal point of view. The pleasure we find in initiating 
people into the history of our fatherland does not come 
from the fact that we intensify our nationalism, or that 
we give an absolute value to things which have but 
a limited importance ; the satisfaction comes from the 
fact that from those events which have a temporary or 
local significance we abstract the eternal elements of 
moral or artistic beauty, and abandoning the soil of our 
private interests we bring them over into the great arena 
of science and art, where everything belongs to everybody. 
"Beauty," says one of our writers, "is the only 
spiritual quality of matter ;, consequently beauty is the 
only link between these two fundamental elements of 
the universe." ^ But if so, what a powerful instigator 
for the acknowledgment of the universal relationship of 
things and men, and of men between themselves, is the 
faculty of responsiveness to beauty we all bear in our 
hearts. And what an important part in that furthering 
of national sociability, which is based on responsiveness 
to beauty, belongs to art in general, — art being the 
embodiment of beauty, — and to literature more particu- 
larly, as to the most many-sided of all arts, and the least 
dependent on place or means of execution. Art is — 
and it will always be so more and more — one of the 
greatest powers which work at the destruction of those 
barriers which have been erected against human inter- 
course by national distinctions. 

1 Danilevsky. 



lo PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

We will not examine here whether nationalism is an 
element of good or of evil, whether patriotism is a form 
of pride, and therefore to be condemned, or a kind of 
devotion, and therefore to be exalted as a virtue : let 
politics take care of geographical frontiers, and illumi- 
nate the map of the world with the glaring colours 
of national divisions, — art and science will pursue 
their task ; they will not allow human hearts to be 
imprisoned in those frontiers. And how could it be 
otherwise ? Nationalities are limited by time and space ; 
art and science stand above both. We generally seem 
unconscious of this fact ; we always seem inclined to 
confine the work of an artist to his time, to his country ; 
it is quite right from the point of view of the creation, 
but quite wrong from the points of view of the enjoy- 
ment. For instance, suppose we take Shakespeare: 
of course, first of all, his works are English and of the 
Elizabethan period ; but this, as I said, only from the 
point of view of the creation ; from the point of view of 
the enjoyment, they are mine as well as yours or as any- 
body's at any time, and it only depends upon myself to 
make them still more mine than anybody else's. This 
the great power of art which comes from its eternal and 
universal character we seem to overlook. We so often 
repeat : " Shakespeare belongs to England and to the 
Elizabethan period," and we do not seem to realize the 
inexactness of the expression. No, Shakespeare does 
not belong to the Elizabethan period ; he lived and 
worked in the Elizabethan period, he does not belong 
to England ; he was born in England, but he belongs 
to the whole world, to any man, in any country, at any 
time from the Elizabethan period down to the eternity 
of eternities. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



Great can be the power of art if we only consent to 
open our hearts to its beneficent influence ; and let us 
not allow political antipathies, national susceptibilities, 
religious controversies, prejudices against an epoch 
or a country or an individual, to steal in between our 
soul and a work of art ; all these are venomous feel- 
ings, but their sting is turned against ourselves. It has 
no power of wounding the work of art ; for art is invul- 
nerable and flourishes on in its serene tranquillity above 
the reptiles of human narrow-mindedness. No, let us 
approach a work of art with that same oblivion of 
human divisions with which we fly to the salvation of 
a man who runs a mortal peril ; as with a burning- 
glass, let us gather and concentrate the irradiating 
beams of beauty so as to light in our hearts the sacred 
glow of responsiveness and sympathy. Let us cultivate 
and preserve in our souls the divine gift of admiration, 
let it not be intimidated, let it not be trampled upon ; for 
every new chord which vibrates in ourselves becomes a 
new point of contact with others, whereas a man who 
loves nothing loves no one. 

Two divergent tendencies in our days dispute with 
each other the supremacy over the direction of human 
thought, — nationalism and cosmopolitism. 

In these latter days the two opinions have been 
strained to the last limits of reason and logic, but do 
you not think that the tempest of controversies ought to 
appease itself before questions of science and art .'' 
When people try to determine whether science and art 
are national or cosmopolitan, it seems to me as hollow 
and useless an attempt as if they were to try to decide 
whether the river belongs to the mountain or to the 
ocean. No work of art is good unless it has been indi- 



12 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

vidual and national, but what is the test of its being 
good ? It is the fact that it has become universal and cos- 
mopolitan. That faculty of widening, of expanding, — 
that is what gives value to intellectual things ; products 
of human genius rise above the soil of their birth, and 
by following them we rise ourselves ; their national 
spirit becomes a force which leads us on the way 
towards universality ; therefore it is not a treason 
against humanity if we love our fatherland, just as there 
is no treason against our fatherland if we love human- 
ity. As the oak is virtually contained in the acorn, so 
the universal importance of a noble feeling is contained 
in its national significance. 

These are the ideas I wished to establish before we 
pass on to our subject ; I should feel glad to have 
them shared by my audience, for the best condition 
of success in community of work is community of 
sentiment. 

In a few rapid strokes let us plant the sign-posts of 
our narration. 

In the misty twilight of those times when history and 
legend just begin to differentiate, the name of Rurik 
appears as the starting-point of Russian history. A 
Norman prince, invited by the Slavonic tribes, who 
lived in the great plain between the Black Sea and the 
Baltic, he leaves his native Norway, brings over with 
him his family, his fighting men, and the name of his 
Norman tribe, Russ. This was in 862. He settles in 
Novgorod, which becomes the chief town of that earli- 
est period, and he starts the dynasty which reigned till 
the end of the sixteenth century. His successors trans- 
fer their residence down to Kiev on the high and pictu- 
resque bank of the Dnieper. The chief event of that 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 13 

period is the introduction of Christianity by the Grand 
Duke of Kiev, Vladimir, in 987. Numerous monaster- 
ies display a vigorous activity of learning, teaching, 
translating, and become the centre of intellectual life. 
But the land is troubled by constant quarrels of the 
princes fighting for the possession of the grand-ducal 
throne of Kiev and by the incursions of Asiatic 
nomadic tribes, as the Petchenegs, Polovtsy, and finally 
the Tartars who invade the country and subjugate it in 
the beginning of the thirteenth century. Out of the dis- 
order of that period of formation, on the sombre back- 
ground of intestine dissensions, two great figures shine 
with serenity in national memory, — Yaroslav the Wise, 
who collected in one book all the oral rules and customs 
of juridical proceedings, and in the "Russian Law" 
gave the first written document of Russian legislation ; 
Vladimir Monomah — the terror of the rebellious princes 
and the favourite of the people. We shall learn to ap- 
preciate his gentle character and high spiritual qualities 
when we examine that famous document known as the 
"Will of Vladimir Monomah," one of the most touching 
specimens of Middle-Age literature. 

The Tartar yoke plunges the whole country into deep 
night ; all attempts at independent political life are sup- 
pressed, those fresh germs of inner national growth 
which gave such vigorous offshoots in the cloister move- 
ment and in the political w,isdom of the above-mentioned 
princes, are destroyed, and all possibility of progress is 
cut off for two hundred years. But national feeling was 
too deeply rooted in the hearts of the people ; while old 
Kiev, with her acropolis of monasteries and churches, 
gradually loses all political importance, a new acropolis is 
rising, — the "white-walled," the "golden-headed" Mos- 



14 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

cow. Under the reign of a series of wise and prudent 
princes she grows slowly but surely, and all the other 
princes finally have to acknowledge her supremacy as 
the only means of salvation ; Moscow becomes the cen- 
tral point of national self-consciousness, and in the 
chronicles she is mentioned with the epithets, " heart 
of Russia " or "collector of the Russian land." In 1380 
the first regular battle is fought with the Tartar, and 
gained by the Grand Duke Dimitry on the banks of the 
Don. The emancipation has begun : a hundred years 
later, under the Grand Duke John III, the enemy is 
finally expelled. The hard work of formation is ful- 
filled, the incubation period is finished, the princedom 
of Moscow stands firmly relying upon the acknowledg- 
ment of national self -consciousness, and in 1547 John 
IV, called the Terrible, crowns himself the first Tsar of 
Moscow. We will stop in our studies at this wonderful 
figure, whose name has been synonymous with terror ; 
that sanguinary autocrat, who dressed like a monk, who 
knew by heart the Scriptures, and whose victims are 
numbered by thousands ; that unfortunate infanticide 
who lived in a mixture of blood and church incense ; 
that combination of Louis XI and Henry VIII, whom 
death prevented from repudiating his seventh wife at the 
very moment he was negotiating with Queen Elizabeth 
of England to obtain the hand of her niece — the prin- 
cess of Hastings. We will come back to this wonder- 
ful figure whose memory has been perpetuated in 
folk-lore, painting, sculpture, novels, and tragedies. 

The horrors of that reign are but like an introduction 
to a series of calamities which overflow the country. 
John's son is a gentle, sweet, but feeble-minded sover- 
eign, and with his death in 1598 the old dynasty of 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 15 

Rurik is extinguished ; his little brother Dimitry has been 
assassinated by the Tsar's brother-in-law, Boris Godunoff, 
who succeeds in securing his election to the throne.- 
But his political wisdom has not the power of wiping 
away the suspicion of murder which hangs over his 
name. After a seven years' reign he dies of poison, 
while, like a living phantom of revenge, a false Dimitry, 
supported by Poland, advances towards Moscow. 

This opens the most trying period of our history, 
known as "times of confusion." Confusion indeed: 
three false Dimitrys appear one after the other with 
intervals of murder, riots, and Polish invasions ; a con- 
stant spirit of revolt ferments in Moscow and the whole 
country against the Polish army, the national feeling 
springs up in desperate efforts, — it is impotent, the 
national instinct has no centre toward which to converge, 
the latent powers of the nation seem predestined to die 
away under the increasing pressure of foreign elements. 
But when Moscow, exhausted by sieges, bombardments, 
massacres, and all the plagues of interregnum and war, 
being reduced to choosing between a third impostor or 
a sovereign of foreign lineage, chooses Vladislav, son 
of King Sigismund of Poland, — the country rises with 
indignation, and her last resources suddenly prove to 
be greater than all that had been spent in previous 
efforts. From Nijni Novgorod on the Volga starts the 
movement of liberation. A merchant's son, a butcher 
called Minin, with fiery eloquence raises the population. 
At cost of the greatest sacrifices a new militia is put on 
foot, and when a leader is wanted, Prince Pojarsky, a 
man who has distinguished himself in many battles and 
is now resting to heal his wounds, is asked to take 
the command. Grand and glorious the picture offered 



1 6 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

by that nation who not by any compulsory means, not 
in virtue of some political institution, but by a spontane- 
ous act of collective confidence, in the most trying mo- 
ment of her life, rises as with a single heart and gives 
herself into the hands of one man, one belonging to the 
class which for seven centuries has been her leader in 
council and war. At the head of a victorious army, 
Minin and Pojarsky make their entrance into pacified 
Moscow ; proclamations are sent into all provinces, 
representatives of the nation gather in the capital, and 
on the 2 1 St of February, 1613, Michael Romanov is 
elected to the throne. 

Thus a nation, that even her own leaders after those 
trying years thought broken down and annihilated, by 
a superhuman effort of energy herself reattaches the 
broken thread of her historical development, calling 
to the front the instinctive powers which slumbered in 
her bosom. Through the confusion of these times she 
finds the way of her predestination ; and while the throne 
is vacant, the patriarch dying from hunger in a Polish 
prison, the old nobility ruined, the army dispersed or 
degenerated into gangs of robbers ; while Moscow is 
lying in ashes, and the Kremlin — her citadel — occupied 
by a Polish garrison, — the nation by herself effects her 
salvation. 

A touching and unique spectacle is offered by Michael 
Romanov, a youth of sixteen, who shares the duties 
and honours of the throne with his venerable father, the 
Patriarch Filaret ; a fruitful and beneficial collaboration. 
With great solicitude the cure of inner wounds is under- 
taken; a "Land Council" formed of representatives 
of the nation at several times is convoked in Moscow. 
Diplomatic intercourse with foreign countries becomes 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 17 

frequent ; extraordinary embassies are exchanged, and 
commercial treaties discussed, with Louis XIII of 
France, Gustave Adolphus of Sweden, King James of 
England, Christian IV of Denmark. 

The infiltration of foreign industry and learning be- 
gins. It becomes still greater under Michael's son, 
Alexis. A flood of Dutch, English, and other merchants 
appear in Moscow ; a German dramatic company, an 
astronomer from Holstein, later a Swiss engineer, a 
Scotch general, — in a few years' time the so-called 
" German Suburb " grows to a regular colony. This 
reign is marked by religious controversies which resulted 
in the great schism in the Russian Church connected 
with the dramatic episode of Patriarch Nikon's rise 
and fall. In 1672, by his second marriage, Tsar Alexis, 
had a son ; the father called him Peter, history added 
the Great. We pass over the reigns of Alexis, his son 
Theodor, his daughter Sophia who ruled in the name of 
her younger brothers, John and Peter ; we pass them by ; 
we will come back to that epoch, that curious epoch, when 
an indigenous movement of intellectual awakening went 
on during the encountering of an increasing foreign 
infiltration ; we will come back to speak of the founda- 
tion of the Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy, of the poems of 
the learned monk, Simeon of Polotsk, of Princess Sophia's 
tragedies, of theatricals in the house of Artamon Mat- 
veeff. We will speak of that period which prepared the 
reform, but now rises before us the gigantic figure of 
the reformer, — the one of whom the poet said : — 

Academician, now a hero, 
Now carpenter, now navigator. 
With his all-comprehensive soul, 
On the throne he was a constant workman. 
c 



1 8 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Never has a great man been portrayed in more 
concise and vigorous lines than Peter the Great in 
these few verses by Poushkin. What more can we 
say in our rapid sketch ? Does he not rise before you 
like a legendary incarnation of a whole country's mul- 
tiple life, an epic personification of the virgin forces 
confusedly smouldering in the nation's collective body, 
and suddenly bursting out in the consciousness of an 
individual soul ? That instinctive historical striving 
towards the open sea which is marked throughout 
previous centuries by continuous bloodshed in the 
north and in the south, in repeated collisions with 
Swedes and Turks, acquires such a condensed intensity 
in Peter's individuality, that in the thirty-six years of 
his reign, more is accomplished than could have been 
dreamt of by his predecessors. He breaks the wall 
which separated Russia from the rest of the world ; 
according to the same poet's expression, he opens a 
window into Europe, and he marks that moment of a 
nation's history when from the period of national feel- 
ing she enters the period of national thought, when her 
own forces, increased and enriched by the historical 
inheritance of other nations begin to count in the great 
resultant of universal forces ; that moment from which 
a nation realizes that she no longer belongs to a terri- 
tory, and that she has to belong to the world. In 1791, 
the Moscovian Tsardom becomes the Russian Empire. 

In this bird's-eye view which we are now taking of Rus- 
sian history, we cannot venture to stop at the events 
which display the practical side of the reforms ; besides, 
it would be inopportune : we must know and understand 
all that went before, to see the difference from that 
which came after. Nevertheless, one impression of a 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 19 

merely pictorial and quite superficial character, I should 
like to give you. Do you think picturesque details 
of dressing, and what French people call " mise en 
scene " deserve to be looked down upon ? I do not 
think they do. I think they help us to put an event 
in its place ; sometimes they help us to recall a fact 
we had forgotten ; they are like nails which fasten a 
picture to our memory ; and they have still another 
importance : one detail of that kind has the property of 
evoking a whole epoch, — a picture can be filled by one 
stroke. Who does not know the evoking power of the 
"toga," of the "spur," of the "jabot," of the powdered 
wig.'' Each of these words, like a condensed volume, 
melts in our memory and fills it up with things which 
are not said, but divined ; this sparing of work produced 
by the force of association is one of the most precious- 
faculties of a well-educated brain desirous to learn. 
So let us not despise those superficial things, but let us 
take some illustrated volume representing portraits of 
Russian sovereigns. When you get to the eighteenth 
century you might think it is another volume illustrat- 
ing another world, and still it is only another part of 
the same volume, — it is divided by a page, one single 
page, but at the bottom of the portrait which adorns 
that page, in a disorderly and hasty handwriting, we read 
the Latin signature " Petrus." He is generally repre- 
sented in the attire of a knight in the armour in which 
all European sovereigns of that time, though they never 
wore it, liked to be portrayed : they knew they were 
the last ones who could appear in the eyes of posterity 
in such attire without incurring the accusation of mas- 
querading. Perhaps you would have preferred another 
picture, — you would rather have had him in his everyday 



20 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

dress, — his wide knickerbocker trousers and brown 
frock-coat, that famous costume that had been displayed 
to the eyes of all Europe, at all the courts, in the Dutch 
and English dock-yards, and which has been so well de- 
scribed by Saint-Simon in his Memoirs where he relates 
Peter's visit to Paris, and the first meeting with the infant 
Louis XV ; how contrary to all etiquette he took the 
child in his arms, lifted him up and kissed the King of 
France.^ Of course that portrait would be more typi- 
cal, though it is not his official one. Now take the last 
page before Peter, — it will probably be either his 
brother John, or his sister, the famous Princess Sophia 
who was too clever for a Tsar's sister, too dangerous for 
Peter's plans, and therefore had to be removed to a con- 
vent. Look at these portraits : how far from our times 
these young though dignified figures under their royal 
attires ! Look at Peter's father Alexis, at his grand- 
father Michael, — they are the last ones of that long 
portrait gallery ; look at their Byzantine gravity, the ec- 
clesiastic sumptuousness of their gold-embroidered man- 
tles, how venerable their long-bearded heads, under the 
golden crown, the famous "cap of Monomah," trimmed 
with fur and surmounted with a cross ; and Peter's 
mother, that respectable lady in a long fur mantle, with 
a fur bonnet, and a white silk kerchief draped round 
her head so as to leave open the nice intelligent face. 

And now let us turn again to Peter, and then one 
page more. If in turning over an illustrated volume 
of French history, you should jump from Charlemagne 
straight over to the powdered marquises of Louis 
XV, the transition would not be more surprising. 
Who is that stout lady in a French low dress, black 

1 " Memoires du Due de Saint-Simon." Paris, 1872, t. IX. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



curls twisting on her naked shoulders, a little diamond 
crown in her ebony hair, a fat full-moon face, with a 
double chin, and a pleasant smile on her sensual lips ? 
This is Peter's wife, the Empress Catherine. (What a 
difference from his mother !) And the next one, that 
youth with a powdered wig, an uninteresting face ? It 
is Peter II, Peter the Great's grandson. 

We cannot take them up one by one, — all those em- 
perors and empresses who so rapidly succeed each other 
after Peter's death in 1725. With the exception of his 
daughter, the Empress Elizabeth, his immediate succes- 
sors are too insignificant, and they are all put in the 
shade by the figure of Catherine the Great. 

On the 28th of June, 1762, in consequence of a palace 
revolution, Catherine, a former princess of Anhalt- 
Zerbst, now the wife of the Emperor Peter III, is pro- 
claimed Empress ; Peter is confined to a suburban 
palace, but with that care of opportuneness which his- 
tory so often showed in good old times, he dies on the 
6th of July. The brilliant and showy reign of the 
" Northern Semiramis " begins. Surrounded by a 
pleiad of eminent men in politics, diplomacy, literature, 
she leads her country in the direction pointed out by 
the great reformer, and effects its final incorporation in 
the family of the European powers. The pomp and 
splendours of that reign furnish the subject of the first 
inspired pages of our literature. Draped in a Roman 
mantle, the pseudo-classical poetry loudly blows the 
trumpet of praise, and to French tunes sings the virtues 
of the Great Empress in sonorous Russian verses. The 
young and vigorous language, which had only just begun 
to detach itself from the antiquated Slavonian forms, with 
a marvellous rapidity evolves towards its final emancipa- 



22 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

tion : Derjavine, the venerable poet who survives the 
Empress whom he had celebrated in his odes, passes 
over the threshold of the century, and before descend- 
ing into the grave is given the chance of greeting that 
youth who is going to raise the Russian language to 
its pinnacle. Poushkin greeted by Derjavine, — the 
genesis and the whole evolution of Russian literature 
is held in these words. 

The last three years of the eighteenth century are 
taken up by the reign of Catherine's son, Paul. This 
short reign has one legendary page, and though it 
should rather be put among appendices than in the very 
text of Russian history, it is nevertheless one of the 
most brilliant pages of Russia's military glory. In 1799, 
the field-marshal. Count Souvorov, one of the glories of 
the precedent reign, takes the command of an army 
which marches to the liberation of the Austrian posses- 
sions in Italy from the French dominion. Two weeks 
after his arrival he makes his triumphant entrance into 
Milan, then Turin is taken — in six weeks all Northern 
Italy is cleared ; the two French generals, Moreau and 
Macdonald, are defeated one after the other ; Mantua is 
taken, General Jaubert is killed at Novi, and forty-five 
hundred French soldiers made prisoners. Italy is lib- 
erated, but the French troops menace Austria from 
Switzerland ; with the greatest difficulties, at the cost of a 
loss of two thousand men, Souvorov passes the St. Goth- 
ard. Every step has to be conquered. At the famous 
Devil's Bridge the struggle becomes desperate, but it is 
taken and passed over ; on the other side the exhausted 
army of less than twenty thousand stands before an 
enemy of sixty thousand ; but Massena had the same 
fate as the others, and the Russian army at last rejoins 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 23 

the Austrians — barefooted but crowned with laurels. 
Few travellers crossing the St. Gothard in a comfort- 
able sleeping-car, and looking at the arch of a half- 
ruined bridge overhanging the blue abyss of a misty 
precipice, realize that they contemplate a monument of 
Russian military glory. Three future marshals of Na- 
poleon defeated, and under what conditions ! And 
Napoleon himself .-' Unfortunately Bonaparte was in 
Egypt just at that time. The old field-marshal, who had 
been keeping a close eye on the young general's 
exploits, used to say : " The fellow strides a pretty good 
pace," but history denied posterity one of the most 
interesting episodes, by not providing for a meeting 
between Souvorov and Bonaparte. As L said, that 
campaign having no link with national interests is to be 
classified among appendices of Russian history ; if we 
have stopped at it a little longer than the rapidity of our 
narrative will allow, it is because such kinds of mingling 
in other nations, — affairs without any practical benefit, 

— have been one of the features of Russian diplomacy 
of this century ; they have been put an end to by the 
national policy of the late Emperor Alexander III. 

We enter into the nineteenth century with the reign 
of Paul's eldest son, Alexander I ; his strange inexpli- 
cable figure, whose individual qualities exercised such an 
irresistible fascination on his contemporaries and leave 
posterity so indifferent, is connected with the memora- 
ble year 1812, — the year of the "fatherland's war," as 
in our history they call that campaign against Napoleon, 

— the memorable year when the conqueror of the world 
was defeated and turned to flight " by the rigour of the 
climate," as is usually said by those who are interested in 
diminishing the importance of Russia's participation in 



24 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

that decisive moment of European history ; and they 
forget that Napoleon crossed our frontier in June, that 
the famous battle at Borodino was in September, that 
consequently he had plenty of time before the winter 
set in to be as successful in Russia as he had been in 
other countries, and that his flight and the retreat of his 
army were effected only in late autumn and the begin- 
ning of winter. The date of 1812 will always shine in 
national memory : it is to every Russian synonymous 
with self-oblivion in the consciousness of national unity ; 
the outburst of patriotic feeling of that epoch has never 
been surpassed but once — two hundred years before, 
in those "times of confusion" we spoke of a while ago. 
The handsome figure of Alexander I becomes insepa- 
rable from the pictures of those great events which 
evolved in Europe from 1805 to 181 5. An air of con- 
tinuous feast, of parade, seems to escort him through 
that epoch of European coalitions and congresses ; but 
it does not alter the spirit of beautiful serenity and 
majestic carelessness which emanates from his person; 
in Europe's collective action against Napoleon he 
becomes the centre, the arbiter ; the enthusiasm of the 
nations delivered from the Caesar's yoke surrounds him 
with a mystic and romantic aureole ; it becomes a delir- 
ium when he enters Paris at the head of the allied 
armies with the Emperor of Austria and the King of 
Prussia on either side ; it rises to its culminating point 
when, after the congresses of Vienna, Laybach, Verona, 
and after his visit to London, he undertakes his journey 
homewards, and when on the whole stretch through those 
foreign countries, pacified and reintegrated on their fron- 
tiers, it is like an uninterrupted pathway of triumphal 
arches with the dedication " Alexandro Benedicto." 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 25 

At home it is the time when Karamsin erects that 
fine monument of Russian prose — his "History of the 
Russian State," when Joukovsky breaks the tradi- 
tions of pseudo-classicism and tunes the chords of 
his lyre according to his romantic aspirations, when 
Poushkin descends into the depths of the national soul 
and brings to light the first jewels of independent 
Russian poetry. The great intellectual fermentation 
begins and goes on so rapidly that the sunrise and the 
brightest daylight of Russian literature are contained in 
less than forty years. The voices in favour of the 
emancipation of the serfs resound louder and louder ; 
unfortunately on the accession of Alexander's brother, 
Nicholas I, in 1825, they break out in the violences of 
a revolutionary movement which has to be suppressed 
by force. But the awaking of spirits unchains the dif- 
ferent currents of opinions ; German philosophy takes 
the place of the French ideas of the eighteenth century, 
Hegelianism crosses the frontier, and with its " nimbus 
of infallibility," inflames the hearts of all that young 
generation which grew up in the idealistic exaltation of 
romanticism. Literary societies arise, and in their 
numerous periodicals fill the air with violent discussions. 

Two great tendencies here for the first time ac- 
centuate their bifurcation with sharply distinct colours ; 
the " Slavophiles," the champions of the national idea, 
national civilization, revilers of Europe, and the "West- 
ernists," champions of one common European civiliza- 
tion, preachers of universalism. The two tendencies 
ever since diverge in their solutions of every important 
question of national life : Russia's destiny, the value 
of Peter the Great's reform, all events of our history 
up to the Norman origin of Rurik become as many 



26 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

wedges which split the current of Russian critical 
thought. 

In the stormy intercrossing of opinions the new 
literary tendencies make their way : Gogol throws aside 
the veil of literary conventionality and by uncovering 
human nature in its sad nakedness, starts the Russian 
naturalistic school ; Lermentov gives way to the bitter- 
ness of his romantic desperation and by adding it to the 
healthy and somewhat epicurean lyrics of Poushkin 
completes the chords of Russian lyrical poetry ; Kolt- 
zoff goes to the root of the peasant's language and with 
his poems gives a beginning to the literature in Russian 
popular style. 

The alarm caused in official circles by the revolution- 
ary outburst in Western Europe about 1848, and the 
trials of the Crimean War, arrest for a while the free 
development of the literary movement, but the names 
of Tourgenieff and Tolstoi have already dawned. The 
Emperor Alexander II ascends in 1855, and on the 19th 
of February, 1862, the emancipation of the serfs is pro- 
claimed. The brilliant pleiad of poets and writers 
which group themselves round that date have all grown 
in the vivifying atmosphere which breathed around the 
throne, while the famous commission presided over by 
Count Rostovtsev was holding its sittings to help the 
monarch in his plans. 

One single act in the history of the nineteenth 
century can be confronted with that act of Emperor 
Alexander II. Another country, too, delivered millions 
of human beings from slavery, but that which in a 
republic was obtained at the cost of a civil war and 
four years of bloodshed, was accomplished in Russia by 
a few enlightened men working in the direction which 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 27 

had been pointed out for them by then' enlightened 
monarch. And it was not a mere whim of destiny but 
the sovereign will of Providence that the name of Alex- 
ander II should be indissolubly connected with the 
memory of the American civil war : the spirit Vv^hich 
favours the accomplishment of those great acts by which 
humanity advances towards the fulfilment of her des- 
tiny is the same everywhere, in every individual, in 
every country, in every nation ; and no geographical 
limits are wide enough, no national divisions profound 
enough, no political barriers high enough to dismember 
the unity of the human soul or to prevent the acknow- 
ledgment of this unity from taking root in our con- 
science. You know Alexander II's tragic end in 188 1 ; 
from that date begins the reign of the Emperor Alex- 
ander III, whose loss we all deplored eighteen months 
ago. 

Thus from history we enter into actuality. At our 
next meeting we will return into the twilight of Russia's 
early day and folk-lore. 



LECTURE II 

(862-1224) 

Two voices from antiquity. East and West in the destiny 
of European nations. Russia's beginning. The " Norman 
theory." Kiev and Byzantium. Vladimir and the baptism of 
Russia. Role of the monasteries. 

Ecclesiastical literature. Nestor and the annals. 

Popular hterature — religious songs, epic songs. " The 
Word about Igor's Fights." 

The " Veche," the prince. Jaroslav the Wise and the " Rus- 
sian Law." Vladimir Monomah and his " Will." Russia and 
Europe in the ante-Mongolian period. 



LECTURE II 

Narration of times of yore, about hoiv Russia came to life, about 
who was the first to rule in Kiev, and how the Russian coiintry be- 
gan to be. — Title of Nestor's Chronicle (eleventh century) . 

THE sovereigns of the Middle Ages liked to have 
their genealogy traced back into antiquity, and 
their names put in direct filiation with those of 
Augustus and Caesar. Modern historiographers like to 
descend from Herodotus, and endeavour by all means to 
hunt up their information as far back in antiquity as 
the first pages by the venerable " Father of History." 
{Are you quite sure we shall not find his name in the first 
chapter of some historical work on the Argentine Re- 
public .'') Russian historical writers, when they ascend 
to that source, get no ethnographical information suit- 
ing their purposes, but they have the satisfaction of 
seeing, if not their ancestors, at least their territory, men- 
tioned by Herodotus. 

When the venerable writer crossed the Hellespont to 
visit the Greek colonies which flourished in what is now 
the Crimea and the northern coast of the Sea of Azov, 
he saw prosperous towns, beautiful temples, porticos 
with slender columns, people walking up the marble 
staircases to worship the gods of their fatherland ; and 
beyond these towns he saw a country of endless plains 
and wide rivers ; and on these plains nomadic hordes of 
Scythians were wandering and pasturing their cattle. 

31 



32 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Of all that scene the endless plains and the wide rivers 
alone remain. The scarce but precious relics of the 
Greek colonies — the beautiful jewels from the excava- 
tions of Kertch — lie in the glass cases of the Kertcl 
museum in the Imperial Hermitage of St. Petersburg/ 
and the .Scythians disappear, absorbed and swept away 
by the Sarmatians and those innumerable nomadic 
tribes which Asia sent out on Europe, like destructive 
winds from the depths of her deserts.^ Thus break 
the threads which attach our history to Herodotus. 

The nomadic tribes of Asia continue their incursions 
on the plains of Southeastern Europe from Herodotus' 
times down to the thirteenth century of our era. The 
chief moments of these incursions are : the Huns in 
the fifth century, the Avars, repelled by Charlemagne 
in the eighth century, and the Mongolians, with whose 
invasion in 1224 the Tartar yoke of Russia begins. But, 
long before that date, in the earliest time of our era, the 
Asiatic hordes meet with a new people, who are living 
at the very entrance of Western Europe, at the foot of 
the Carpathian Mountains along the lower course of the 
Danube. These are Slavonians ; their forefathers were 
known to Tacitus, as living on the southeast shores of 
the Baltic. When Tacitus asks himself whether he 
shall classify them among Asiatics or among Euro- 

1 On excavations in Southern Russia: "Antiquites du Bosphore Cim- 
merien conservees au Musee Imperial de I'Hermitage." 3 vols. St. 
Petersburg, 1854. " Compte rendu de la Commission Imperiale Arche- 
ologique pour les annees 1 859-1 883 avec atlas in f°." St. Petersburg, 
1860-1883. "Recueil d'antiquites de la Scythie publie par la Commis- 
sion Imp. Archeol." St. Petersburg, 1866-1S70. N. Kondakov and Ct. 
T. Tolstoi, "Antiquites de la Russie meridionale." Paris, 1891. 

2 On these early times : E. Bonnel, " Beitrage zur Alterthumskunde 
Russlands." St. Petersburg, 1882. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE ^^ 

peans, he answers : among the latter, for they build 
houses, wear shields, and fight on foot, all which is just 
the contrary of what the Sarmatians do, who live in 
vehicles and fight on horseback.^ Thus the great 
Roman historian anticipates the statements of an- 
thropology, comparative philology, and other modern 
sciences by the sagacity of his observation and his 
unprejudiced judgment. 

How far, how different this early verdict of history 
from the opinion of that German writer, who at the be- 
ginning of our century divided human beings into 7ne7i 
and RiLssians. But then Klinger was a poet and not a 
historian nor a philologist. Historians know that the 
Slavonians with the Greek, Latins, and Germans belong 
to the great Indo-Aryan family, which, centuries be- 
fore history's record begins, moved from India through 
Central Asia and the Caucasus westward ; ^ and philolo- 
gists know that of all European languages the Slavo- 

^ C. C. Tacitus, "De moribus Germanorum," cap. xlvi. " Peucino- 
rum Venedorumque et Fennorum nationes Germanis an Sarmatis ad- 
scribam, dubito. . . . Venedi multum ex moribus traxerunt . . . inter 
Germanos potius referuntur, quia et domos fingunt," etc. ... " Ger- 
mani " here is taken as a generic appellation for all European "barba- 
rians" (who evidently are not differentiated in Tacitus' mind), whereas, 
" Sarmati " designates Asiatic " barbarians." The " Venedi," whatever 
their nationality, by the fact of being called " Germani " are classified 
among those whom the historian opposes to the " Sarmati," i.e. among 
Europeans. As to the identification of the " Venedi " with the Slavonians, 
we rely upon Solovieff ("History of Russia," vol. i, ch. iii), who bases 
himself on: Pliny, "Hist. Nat." i, iv, c. 13. Tacit. "Germ." vi, c. 7. 
Ptolem. " Geogr." i, iii, c. 5 ; i, v, c. 9. Peripl. in Geogr. veteris Script, 
graeci minores." ed. Hudson, i, 54-57. Jornandes, " De Getarum origine 
et rebus gestis," c. 5. 

2 On the Slavonians : Zeuss, " Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstamme," 
1837. Sourovetsky (translated by Schaffarik) " Ueber die Abkunft der 
Slaven." Qfen, 1828. 

D 



34 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

nian idioms stand the nearest to the old Indo-Iranian 
stock. 1 

As you see, Tacitus does not mention the Slavonians 
as moving from Asia ; when he knows them they are 
already incorporated in Europe and they are one of 
the elements by which Europe resists Asiatic incur- 
sions. Nothing is known as to the date of their exodus 
from the common Indo-Aryan cradle, nothing about 
their march westward, and the first independent act of 
the Slavonians, registered by history, is on the contrary 
their migration from the slopes of the Carpathians 
down into the valleys of the Dniester and the Dnieper,^ 
consequently a movement eastward.^ This is signifi- 
cant and commands the attention of anyone who has 
meditated on the destinies of nations and the develop- 
ment of the great historical lines. 

The migratory movement of humanity has always 
been from the east westward, and not only men but all 
living beings, all animal and vegetable species, accord- 
ing to the statements of natural science, have followed 
the same direction — "the direction of the sun" as we 
commonly say. It is even considered one of the condi- 
tions of successful colonization — -to follow consciously 
the direction of the universal movement.^ With regard 

1 On Slavonic language : Miklosich, " Lautlehre der altslavonischen 
Sprache." " Formlehre der altslavonischen Sprache." Vienna, 1850. 
" Slavische Bibliothek oder Beitrage zur slavonischen Philologie und 
Geschichte," 2 B. Vienna, 1851-1858. And numerous smaller writings by 
the same on more special questions of Slavonic philology. 

2 " The presence of the Slavonians in the Danube region in ancient 
times has left clear traces in the names of towns." (S. Solovieff, " Hist, 
of Russia," vol. i, chap, iii.) See Schaffarik (Safarik), "Slavische Alter- 
thiimer," 2 B. Leipzig, 1 843-1 844. 

3 S. Solovieff, op. cit. 

* Basile Conta, " Theorie de Tondulation universelle." Paris, 1895. The 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 35 

to the movements of the European nations within the 
limits of the old continent, we may observe, that for 
those of them which have followed the universal, the 
physical law, the westward direction has always been a 
source of mental growth, whereas the opposite tendency 
led to a field of sharing; we might characterize the two - 
directions by saying thus, the movement of a European^ 
nation eastward is educating, whereas the movement 
westward is self-educating. I wish to submit this 
question which throws such an interesting light on 
Russia's destiny to the attention of those interested in 
philosophy of history ; they may take these facts as a 
starting-point, far more, as a basis for their judgment 
of the different events of Russian history — and I feel 
entitled to assert that they will not draw a false conclu- 
sion even if not very well versed in facts. Any a priori 
statement which they may establish on that basis will 
find its posterior justification. Goethe's words may be 
applied in full security : " Was der Geist verspricht, das 
halt die Natur." (That which the mind promises, nat- 
ure keeps.) Those who may consider Russian history 
and especially Russian politics from the point of view 
of the westward and eastward tendencies of the human 
races will see that they have struck the key-note of that 
people whose ancestry, at the beginning of the seventh 
century, moved from the lower course of the Danube, 
and which, at the end of the nineteenth century, be- 
comes the arbiter between China and Japan. 

In their march eastward the ancient Slavonians moved 
gradually, and during the two centuries of their migra- 
tion they founded a succession of states which settled 

Greek colonies in Asia Minor in antiquity and Australia in modern times 
seem to offer the only examples contradicting the above statement. 



36 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

down while the others were continuing their way. Thus 
arose one after the other, the Samo, the Chrobatian, the 
Servian, the Great Moravian, and finally the Russian 
state. You remember that the date of 862 is the one 
which marks the beginning of our history ; the event 
which stands in connection with this date is known as 
"the calling of the princes." This is how the old 
chronicles relate the story of Russia's origin. 

The tribes which lived along the course of the 
Dnieper and its tributaries, exhausted by continuous in- 
cursions on one another and molested by their nomadic 
neighbours, decide to send a deputation over sea to 
Norway to choose a sovereign among the Varegues. 
"Our land is vast and fertile, but no order in it — do 
come and rule over us." So the deputies said when 
they stood before Rurik, chief of the Norman tribe 
called Russ ; and Prince Rurik came over, settled at 
Novgorod, and started the Russian state. ^ 

This fact is one of those vulnerable points of our 
history which have the property of unchaining endless 
polemics. The national party feels hurt in its patriot- 
ism by that "Norman theory" which confers on for- 
eigners the honour of having been the founders of Rus- 
sia. Lomonosov was the first to start the alarm in the 
last century, and since then discussions have never ceased. 
We will not enter into the fastidious controversies round 
the question whether the word "Varegue" is the name 
of a tribe or a military denomination, whether Rurik 

1 On Russia's origin : W. Thomsen, " Ursprung des russischen Staates," 
1879. A. A. Kunik, "Die Berufung der Schvedo-Russen durch die Fin- 
nen und Slovenen," St. Petersburg, 1 844- 1 845. Ewers, " Veritische Vor- 
arbeiten zur Geschichte der Russen." Krug, " Forschungen," 2 B. St. 
Petersburg, 1848. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 37 

comes from Norway or from actual Prussia ; whether he 
is a Norman or a Slavonian. Is it really so very humili- 
ating to have one's history begin with a foreign domin- 
ion ? Which is the European nation whose history 
begins otherwise ? Anglo-Saxons, Franks and Celts, 
Germans and Romans — all European nations are the 
result of invasions, conflicts, fusions. 

It is as if Nature would not permit an act of national 
self-generation. Ancient Romans were not less proud 
than we are, and still their national feeling did not inter- 
fere when popular fiction connected their origin with the . 
foundation of Alba Longa by ^neas, the unfortunate >/ 
exile of destroyed Troy, for they knew that even the 
most fantastic legend conforms with Nature's laws. 

The Varegues were no new-comers in the country. 
When the successors of Rurik, abandoning Novgorod, 
moved down to Kiev, they found many of their own 
people settled there, for since many years the great 
river Dnieper had become a commercial passage from 
Norway down to the Black Sea and to the splendid and 
opulent chief town of the Byzantine Empire ; this was 
such a powerful point of attraction that this early period 
of our history is full of raids on Byzantium. But this 
half-commercial, half-military intercourse with the east- 
ern Roman Empire was destined to have a greater im- 
portance. Pascal says that rivers are walking roads — 
by that walking road, the Dnieper, Christianity entered 
Russia. 

It did not enter at once. From the beginning of the 
tenth century it infiltrates by individual cases ; in the 
middle of the century there was already a church in 
Kiev (consecrated to St. Elijah). In 957 Princess 
Olga, mother of the ruling Prince Sviatoslav (Rurik's 



38 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

grandson), goes to Byzantium to be baptized in the 
Christian faith ; the Emperor himself is her god- 
father.i Her son did not consent to give up the 
paganism of his forefathers, but her grandson, Prince 
Vladimir, sent ambassadors to investigate the religions 
of foreign countries. When they came back, they said 
to their prince : " No man would like to eat bitter after 
having tasted honey, so we cannot think of returning to 
our gods after having witnessed the divine service of 
the Greek." The service which made such a profound 
impression on Vladimir's ambassadors was the solemn 
liturgy celebrated by the Patriarch of Constantinople 
in the presence of the two brother-emperors Constan- 
tine and Basil, under the dome of St. Sophia. Vladi- 
mir decided to embrace the Christian religion and to 
request the Byzantine emperors that they would pro- 
vide for the baptism of his people. But he did not 
care to take up the part of a simple solicitor ; so he 
marched with his soldiers against Chersonesos, a Greek 
colony, on the coast of the present Crimea, intending 
in the case of success to make of the new religion a 
sort of military contribution. The plan was carried 
out, Chersonesos was taken, and ambassadors were sent 
to Constantinople to ask the Emperor's sister Anna in 
marriage for Prince Vladimir. The change of religion 
was required as the condition from the Emperor's side, 
and when Vladimir assented, a Greek bishop came over 

^ In the following poetical terms does the old chronicler picture the signif- 
icance of Princess Olga's baptism. " She was the forerunner of Christianity 
in Russia, as the morning star is the precursor of the sun, and the dawn the 
precursor of the day. As the moon shines at midnight she shone in the 
midst of a pagan people. She was like a pearl amid dirt, for the people 
were in the mire of their sins and not purified by baptism. She purified 
herself in a holy bath and removed the garb of sin of the old man Adam." 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 39 

to Chersonesos. A fine church at a short distance from 
Sebastopol contains in our days the marble basin 
wherein the baptizer of Russia was baptized in the 
Christian faith. When Vladimir returned to Kiev the 
whole population was gathered into the Dnieper, parted 
in different groups, every group received a new name, 
and all were baptized in the Christian faith. This was 
in 987. When in the next century the dissensions 
between Constantinople and Rome brought about the 
great scission of the Christian Church, Russia, as the 
god-daughter of Byzantium, followed her example and 
ever since has refused acknowledgment of the Pope's 
supremacy. 

Vladimir becomes a zealous Christian ; thanks to him, 
churches, cathedrals, monasteries spring up on the 
picturesque bank of the Dnieper, and Kiev becomes 
and remains till this hour a point of pilgrimage for the 
whole country. After his death the Grand Duke Vladi- 
mir, canonized by the Church, becomes one of the 
most revered saints, but he becomes also the centre 
of national epic poetry. Let us take this double 
character of Vladimir's memory as a guidepost for our 
further investigations ; let us examine first the activity 
stirred up by the newly imported religion, and let us 
then pass over to the native elements which find ex- 
pression for themselves in national poetry. 

The first agents of the preaching of Christianity were 
the Greek clergy ; the channel by which it entered 
people's consciences was the Slavonic translation of the 
Bible effected by the two Greek brothers Cyril and 
Methodius, a century before, for the use of the Mora- 
vians ; ^ the hearths whence Christianity irradiated to 

1 See Louis Leger, " Cyrile et Methode." Paris, 1868. 



40 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

spread over the country were monasteries. We hardly 
can realize the importance of monasteries at that time, 
in a country where there were no schools, no trace of 
learning, a country whose national self-consciousness 
was only just beginning to awake, and had no moral 
centre to converge to, a country whose greatest part 
was plunged in deepest night of paganism, and whose 
population was in full activity of poetical creation, 
composing those songs which were to become the lay 
collaborators of the clergy in educating future genera- 
tions. 

The monastery is the summit of everything at that 
time : it accumulates all virtue, all learning, and, we 
might as well say, all power, for except in warfare the 
advice of those learned men who lived in prayer and 
fasting was often asked arid followed by the princes. 
The princes themselves gravitate to the monastery ; 
the two powers respectively attract each other ; the 
princes, having been the first to enjoy the benefits of 
learning, become by right of intellectual aristocracy 
the immediate accessories of the monks outside the 
monastery's gates ; they often themselves resemble mo- 
nastic warriors or martial monks. Such are the con- 
ditions of individual life in the early age of nations : a 
man cannot provide for his physical necessities unless he 
fights : he cannot read a book unless he becomes a monk ; 
the gradual attenuation of these two extremes is what we 
call civilization, and its degree can be measured by the fa- 
cility with which both physical and intellectual necessities 
can be satisfied without encroaching upon each other. 

The literature which originated and grew in the 
monasteries consisted either of translations from the 
Greek, or of original writings ; the first became the pat- 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 41 

terns imitated by the latter. It was of sacred character ; 
lives of saints, sermons, descriptions of pilgrimages, etc. 
All these writings in the impressions they produce present 
a strange combination of a sort of affected didacticism 
(inevitable in any literature of imitative character), and 
of a genuine artlessness and freshness which find way 
through the exigences of a severe form imported by 
foreign teachers.-^ 

Amidst the rude specimens of ecclesiastical eloquence 
of that time the sermon of Bishop Ilarion (105 1), "On 
the law and the grace," stands apart from all else, and 
forms in its way a literary phenomenon. " If you trans- 
late it into modern Russian," says a critic, "you may 
take it for a discourse of Karamsin's, — so beautifully 
eloquent it is and so masterly composed."^ 

A great charm emanates from the description of a 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem by the Prior Daniel.^ The 
humble monk writes down all he has seen in order to 
give a spiritual satisfaction to those who would like, 
"though with their bodies remaining at home," to 
make a mental pilgrimage to Jerusalem, " for many 
people," he says, "attain the Holy Land not by travel- 
ling, but simply by their good deeds." Interesting are 
the historical particulars of his sojourn in Palestine : the 
kindness of King Baldwin of Jerusalem, who invited 
the Russian pilgrim to accompany him in his expedi- 

^ See Schaffarik (Safarik) " Uebersicht der altesten kirchslavonischen 
Literatur." Leipzig, 1848. 

2 Goloubinsky, " History of the Russian Church." 2 vols. Moscow, 
1880 (Russian). 

^ French translation by A. Norov, " Igoumene russe, Pelerinage en 
Terre Sainte au commencement du xii siecle (11 13-1115)," St. Petersburg, 
1864. German transl. by A. Leskien in "Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palas- 
tinavereins," B. vii. Leipzig, 18S4. 



42 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

tion to Damascus ; touching is his constant preoccupa- 
tion with his own people left at home ; the recital of 
how he went to the market, how he bought a big crystal 
hanging lamp, how he filled it with oil — " pure oil, 
without water" — how he placed it at the foot of our 
Lord's Sepulchre, — " and there it was lighted," he 
adds," in the name of all the Russian princes, of all the 
Russian land, and all the Christians of the Russian 
land." 1 

Parallel with this strictly religious literature, in the ec- 
clesiastic sense of the word, a collateral popular religious 
literature developed. From the very first the inquiring 
mind of the early Christians had been interested in 
those facts of the holy history which are only men- 
tioned but not described in the Scriptures ; and in 
Russia, as in Western Europe, a great many writings 
appear as a sort of supplement to the Bible. Among 
these apocryphas we must mention the very popular 
"Wandering of God's Mother through the Tortures" 
(twelfth century). The Virgin Mary one day after her 
assumption, attended by the Archangel Michael, under- 
takes to visit all who are suffering in the different 
circles of hell. When she returns from her doleful 
peregrination and stands in the presence of Jesus 
Christ, she intercedes for the unfortunate sinners. The 
Son of God, " for the sake of His Father's mercy, for the 
sake of His Mother's prayer, for the sake of Michael, 
the Archangel, and for the sake of all the Saints," 
releases the sinners from pains for fifty-two days, — 
from Good Thursday to Pentecost. 

^ It is worthy of note that with his epic style the author of the " Pil- 
grimage " combines such topographical precision that even to-day the 
French Dominicans in their archEeological researches rely upon it. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 43 

This apocryphical literature had a great influence on 
the imaginative spirit of the people, and brought about 
a kind of poetry which we might call " ecclesiastic folk- 
lore" ; and which we shall examine later. 

The most precious relics, transmitted to us by the 
diligence of the monks, are the annals of our history. 
Observed by ocular witnesses or gathered from others' 
recitals, the turbulent events of those ages are intro- 
duced under the silent vaults of the cell, and, by the 
trembling light of the oil-lamp, fixed by a pious hand 
on the yellow parchment. The oldest annals are those 
by Nestor, a monk of the eleventh century, who is revered 
as the " father of Russian history," and the oldest tran- 
script of his annals is a manuscript of 1377, consequently 
almost three hundred years later than the original.^ 
Its title in an approximate translation would read as 
follows : " Narration of Times of Yore : about how 
Russia came to life, about who was the first to rule in 
Kiev, and how the Russian country began to be."^ 
Like all chroniclers of all countries, Nestor begins his 
narration from the Biblical times, viz., with Noah, and 
in following up the different descendants of Shem, 
Ham, and Japheth in their wanderings he gets to the 
Slavonians and finally to the Russians. 

Two hundred and sixty years of our history are de- 
scribed by him, — from 850 to mo; of the last forty 
years he speaks as an ocular witness.^ 

1 Russia's oldest written document is the so-called " Gospel of Ostro- 
mir " — the text of the gospel transcribed by a deacon called Gregory, for 
Ostromir, provost of Novgorod, in 1056-1057. It is preserved in the Im- 
perial Public Library at St. Petersburg. 

2 French translation by Louis Leger. Paris, Leroux, 1884. 

^ Russian chronicles precede by one century the first French chronicle 
by Villehardouin (d. 1213) and the first Italian annals by Matteo Spi- 



^ 



44 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Many followed Nestor's example ; others transcribed 
or compiled in chronological order disjointed fragments of 
older annals, wishing as one of them says " to gather 
all these flowers into one verbal basket." Thus, an 
uninterrupted thread of chronicles runs through the 
whole history, dying away towards the last years of the 
seventeenth century. With the continuous process of 
copying, a sort of superposition could not help forming 
over the original text ; later investigations and discoveries 
have undermined the reliability of some of the narra- 
tions regarding the earliest times, still they remain 
unaltered at the bottom of our national creed : science 
may show us as clearly as two and two are four, that 
we were oysters before we evolved into human shape, 
— we shall never cease admiring Raphael's frescos 
representing the six days of the creation.^ 

It is hard for one not familiar with the text to form 
an idea of the impression produced by these annals ; 
the simplicity and majesty of the language,^ joined to a 
complete absence of literary effort and any personal 
element,^ are of such power that a few quotations in a 
page of modern Russian text communicate a peculiar 

nella (i 247-1 268). One of the earliest German chronicles dates from the 
fourteenth century (JohannRiedesel, of Hess, d. 1341). Chronicles con- 
temporary with that of Nestor were transcribed only in two languages: 
Greek in Byzantium, Latin in the rest of Europe. 

^ One of the best researches on Russian chronicles is the work of 
Schloezer : " Nestor. Rugsische Annalen in ihrer Slavischen Grund- 
sprache verglichen, iibersetzt und erklart." 5 B. Gottingen, 1805- 
1809. 

2 Fr. Miklosich, "Ueber die Sprache der altesten russischen Chronis- 
ten, vorzuglich Nestor's." Vienna, 1855. 

3 Impersonality is the characteristic feature by which Russian annals 
differ from the western as those by Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, 
Giovanni Villani, and others. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 45 

dignity to the style of the simplest manual of Russian 

history. 1 

Such were the chief elements of the intellectual life 

* 

which developed on the basis of the newly imported 
Byzantine Christianity. Let us now follow them up 
outside the threshold of the convent, and let us see 
what resulted from their encounter with the genuine 
currents of poetical creation working in the people. 

We said awhile ago that Christianity found this 
people in the full activity of its imaginative powers ; this 
produced a very strange conflict, or rather fusion, at the 
cost of reciprocal concessions or compromises between 
the new religion and the preceding divinizing of Nature's 
powers. The life of the people was full of ceremonies 
and rites, by which it used to celebrate all the events of 
existence from birth to death ; all this could not be up- 
rooted at once, and, incapable of giving up their habits, 
the people incorporated them into the new religion. 

Many customs, such as dancing, singing certain songs, 
jumping over burning piles, collecting certain plants, 
were transported to Christian holidays, — the mere 
agreement in the phonetic consonants of the name of 
a Christian saint and that of a former God being often 
a sufficient reason for such a transplantation ; all festivi- 
ties in honour of the summer were grouped round St. 
v/ John's day (24th of June); the prophet Elijah took the 
place of the former god of thunder, and even to-day 
popular superstition identifies thunder with the rolling 
of Elijah's fire-wheeled chariot. By and by the old sig- 
nificance faded away from the people's memory : that 

1 According to a critic the style of Nestor's annals could have arisen 
only under the influence of a close acquaintance with the Bible. Shevy- 
rioff, " History of Russian Literature." 4 vols. Moscow, i860 (Russian). 



46 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

which was a rite centuries ago survives as an ordinary 
amusement, with no inner meaning, and simply connected 
with a certain date or a certain time of the year.^ But 
the clergy had to fight for a long time against what re- 
ceived the alarming and suggestive name of "duple- 
creed." 

Strange to say, in spite of this vitality of the ritual 
side of paganism, the people's spiritual interest was 
radically turned towards Christian subjects ; we might 
say that elements of the old creed kept hold of the 
people's memory, whereas Christianity took hold of its 
imagination. This is a side of the question that has not 
i-been appreciated by those of our critics who deplore the 
insufficiency of the Christian culture at that time and 
accuse our early clergy of inactivity. A whole world 
of poetical creation, something like a "religious folk- 
lore," stands there to indicate that, whatever the poverty 
of missionary means was, however vague the first delinea- 
tion of the Christian code of morality, Christianity in the 
person of its founders and in the events of its history had 
become a constant companion of national thought ; how- 
ever fantastic sometimes the subjects of these songs, how- 
ever skin-deep the comprehension of the real Christian 
spirit, they spread the names and facts, they made them 
familiar to the people, they prepared for the acceptance 
of the law's spirit; it was like a self-education of a big 
child : popular imagination became the missionary of 
popular belief. Let us mention a few of these "reli- 
gious poems," and first of all that touching song called 

1 On Slavonic mythology : Dr. Gr. Krek, " Einleitung in die Slavische 
Literaturgeschichte." Gratz, 1887. Louis Leger, "Esquisse sommaire 
de la mythologie Slave," in "Nouvelles etudes slaves." 2d serie. Paris, 
1886. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 47 

"Adam's Lament," v/hich begins with the desperate call 
of a man who feels the irreparability of his loss : — 

Paradise, my paradise, 
Beautiful my paradise ! 

For my sake, 
Paradise, thou wert created. 

By Eve's fault, 
Paradise, thou hast been closed! 

Joseph is a popular personage, Solomon is a favourite ; 
the chief events of the New Testament, the Annuncia- 
tion, St. John the Precursor, the Baptism of our Lord, 
Christmas, are all treated as subjects for poetry. The 
" Song of the Dove-Book " unrolls a curious scheme of 
cosmogony. A book falls down from heaven, and fantas- 
tic kings from David to Vladimir gather round it and by 
reading it learn all that is going on everywhere " even in 
the depths " ; a queer geography appears in this anachro- 
nistic story, where Jerusalem is taken as the " umbilicus 
of the earth," and where the river Jordan flows out of the 
lake Ilmen, — the one near which Rurik settled down.^ 

Parallel with this poetry, which is an evident result 
of imported literary influence, we see the vigorous up- 
springing of genuine epic poetry. The chief motive of 
the so-called " Kievcycle " is the fighting with the Mon- 
golian tribes of the east or, according to the expres- 
sion of one of our critics, the fight with tiie desert.^ 
We touch here one of the manifestations of the sec- 
ular struggle between Europe and Asia, which began 

^ On Russia's apocryphal literature : M. Gastner, " Ilchester lectures on 
Greco-Slavonic literature and its relation to the folk-lore of Europe dur- 
ing the Middle Ages." London, 1887. 

2 A quite different character is presented by the " Novgorod Cycle " ; 
this commercial republic, which belonged to the Hanseatic League, and 



48 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

under the walls of Troy and remains undecided until 
to-day. 

Ilia Mouromets is the most typical and popular figure 
of the Kiev epopee : a peasant-hero, not a warrior, with 
a sense of justice and a natural aversion to all iniquity ; 
simple-hearted, good-natured, never making a fuss about 
his exploits, he rides along on his steed, and with that 
supernatural strength with which two unknown beggar- 
travellers one day endowed him by means of a beverage, 
he fights against evil, and protects misery and weakness ; 
cheerful and jolly, of pleasant company, he becomes a 
favourite at Prince Vladimir's table, commanding respect 
from everyone and keeping a sort of rank of his own 
among the noble members of the Prince's household. If 
Ilia is the soul of the epopee, Vladimir is its centre. The 
hospitable court of the Grand Duke of Kiev, where once 
a week a table is dressed for the " boyars " and the doors 
of the kitchen always stand open for the poor, is the con- 
verging point where all heroes gather ; it is to their 
Prince's service they bring their physical strength, it is 
for his glory they fight, for "Vladimir, our beautiful 
sun," is the hope and joy of everybody, he is the light of 
the country, the smile of the people ; other princes 
scarcely exist, he counts for all Russia, and centuries 
after he has died he is still the Grand Duke of Kiev. 
Thus anticipating history, popular fiction accomplished 
in the Kiev-period that union of the country which 
actually was secured only in the middle of the Mosco- 
vite period. 

The characteristic of the Russian epopee consists in 

flourished till the end of the fifteenth century, brought to life a sort of 
poetry we might call " commercial epopee " as a contrast to the " heroic 
epopee " of Kiev. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 49 

the fact that, while in Western Europe the epic songs 
had become the prey of individual poets and thus 
were transmitted to print, not as popular productions, 
but as literary compositions, our epopees preserved 
their virgin freshness till the very moment they were 
fixed by print. The writing down of our epic songs 
began in the last century, though at first with no great 
result ; towards the middle of the present century, how- 
ever, a few zealous seekers, exploring the northern prov- 
inces of Russia, succeeded in discovering positively 
inexhaustible treasures of epic poetry, which were 
brought to light hardly more than twenty years ago. 

In the course of forty-eight days, one Hilferding, to 
whom we owe the most valuable discoveries in this line, 
came across seventy peasant singers, and wrote down 
more than three hundred songs. This was in the prov- 
ince of Olonets, far to the north of Russia, while in the 
province of Kiev, in the land of their birth, not one has 
been gathered. Why this migration of national poetry, 
why this flight of the popular songs into the inacces- 
sible forests ? Perhaps the clergy looked with an 
unfavourable eye on what they considered a profane 
amusement ; perhaps, when those political struggles 
began which tormented Kiev and Moscow, they were 
passed over and entrusted to those quiet regions of the 
north; perhaps they themselves had the presentiment 
that it would be better to fly and to hide in the deep 
forests, before they should be pursued and dispersed by 
the piercing whistle of civilization at whose approach so 
many songs have died away, so many dreams have 
vanished.^ 

^ On the Russian folk-lore : W. R, S. Ralston, " Russian folk-tales." 
London, 1873. "Songs of the Russian People." London, 1872. Miss 
E 



50 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Such was the field on which popular creative forces 
exercised themselves, and such were the plants this 
field produced. Of course we can only touch on this 
subject in such a concise and rapid sketch. 

We must now say a word on the only specimen of 
individual poetical creation we possess of the ante-Mon- 
golian period, not because it is the only remaining one, 
but because it is unique in every way and because so 
powerful is its poetical force as to make it to-day and 
forever one of the finest jewels of our literature. 

"The Word about Igor's Fights," ^ relates the story 
of an unsuccessful expedition of Prince Igor's, in 1185, 
against the Polovtsy, one of the nomadic tribes, his 
march, his defeat, the lament of his wife Yaroslavna, 
who waits for him on the city walls of Poutivl, his flight, 
and his return. The wonderful impression produced 
by this simple story lies in a poetical breath of an 
almost savage impetuosity, unbridled, irresistible, which 
imbues with the animating force of its mythological 
imagination anything it touches : the hours of the day, 
the twilight, the wind, the desert, the river, the grass, — 
all is animated and vibrates and lives up to a harmony 
of sympathy with man. New romanticism with its 

Isabel F. Hapgood, " The Epic Songs of Russia." New York, 1886. Ram- 
baud, " La Russie Epique." Paris, 1876. Tiander, " Russische Volks- 
Epopeen." St. Petersburg, 1894. Bodenstedt, " Die poetische Ukraine." 
1845. W. WoUner, " Untersuchungen iiber die Volksepic der Grossrus- 
sen." Leipzig, 1879. Valuable information on Slavonic philology, poetry, 
history, etc., in Prof. Jagic's periodical, " Archiv fiir slavische Philologie." 
Vienna. 

1 Miss Hapgood in her introduction to the "Epic Songs of Russia,"' 
translates : " Word of Igor's Troop." The author commits the very com- 
mon, error of taking the word " polk " in its present significance, " regi- 
ment," whereas it formerly meant "expedition." We thought this latter 
a rather modern expression and substituted for it " fights." 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 51 

attempts at animating Nature by awakening the shallow 
phantoms of ancient legends has never succeeded in 
imposing upon us as powerfully the illusion of Nature's 
participation in human life, as this poem, where flowers 
in the field fade for sorrow. I pick out at random 
these few lines describing the beginning of a battle : — 

Lo! 

Stribog's ^ children take their flight : 
Blowing winds, — they carry arrows, 
Send them straight on Igor's army. . . . 
Muddy yellow grow the rivers, 
Moans the field and dust arises. 
And already through the dust 
You may see the flapping banners ! 

Wonderful are the descriptions of the prairies,^ the 
nomadic camp, the noise of the grass when the tents 
are moved, the creaking of the wheels like the noise 
of swans' wings : nothing is left unobserved, and every- 
thing is vivified by the poet's imagination. This poem 
was discovered in 1795; the original, a manuscript of 
the fourteenth century, perished in the great fire of 
Moscow at the time of Napoleon's invasion in 1812;^ 
the author is unknown, but undoubtedly contemporary 
with the events described. Unfortunately it stands 
alone ; all critics agree that it must be considered as a 
fragment of a whole cycle of military epopees which 
must have flourished in the immediate surrounding of 
the Prince.^ We have finished with the poetical pro- 

1 A mythological divinity, father of the winds (the Greek ^olus). 

^ " Seven and a half centuries before Gogol had dashed off his pictures 
of South Russian steppes, the author of the ' Word about Igor's Fights ' 
already made us feel their beauty." S. Shevyrioff, op. cit. 

^ A transcript was found among the papers of Catherine the Great. 

* French translations (more or less complete and satisfactory): Eich- 



52 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

ductions of the time ; the last poem brings us back to 
history. 

The poHtical power in those days was represented by 
two elements : the so-called " veche," the people's as- 
sembly, and the prince. Their respective situation 
was not firmly established and much depended upon 
the personal character of the prince : if the latter was 
strong, he commanded the veche ; if he was weak, he 
was controlled and often deprived of power and expelled. 
The assembly had no regular organization ; people were 
called together by the ringing of the church bell ; they 
gathered on the public place, they decided upon ques- 
tions of war and peace ; no regular proceedings were 
held, and discussion often ended with fisticuffs. Yet in 
some towns, namely in Novgorod and Pskoff, the veche 
had grown to a quite independent political power. 
Under the influence of the Tartar yoke it gradually 
lost its significance and died away with the increasing 
absorption of the minor princedoms by Moscow. 

The Russian prince of the ante-Mongolian period is a 
type which does not repeat itself in posterior history. 
Whether Normans or not, they preserve till the thirteenth 
century that same spirit of romantic adventurousness 
which animates the companions of William the Con- 
queror or Robert Guiscard, that same thirst for military 
glory which induces those children of the north to insert 
among the pages of history that fairy tale which is the 
Norman Kingdom of Sicily. The condition of the 

horf, " Histoire de la langue et de la litterature des slaves." Paris, 1839. 
Mickievicz, " Les Slaves." Paris, 1S49. Rambaud, "La Russie Epique." 
Paris, 1876. Barghon, Fort Rion. Paris, 1876. German translation with 
Slavonic text, glossary, and commentaries, by Dr. August Boltz. Berlin, 
1854. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 53 

country, alas, favoured their belligerency only too much. 
Towards the middle of the eleventh century the de- 
scendants of Rurik grew to a numerous family ; each 
member of this family had his own apanaged principal- 
ity, but they were seldom satisfied and it was a hard 
task for the Grand Duke of Kiev to hold them in good 
order. The situation became complicated chiefly in 
consequence of the strange order of succession to 
the grand-ducal throne of Kiev. It did not pass to 
the eldest son, but to the eldest member of the whole 
family — generally to the late Grand Duke's brother, and 
only after all the brothers had ruled came the turn of the 
eldest son. This order of succession, by which uncles 
had precedence over nephews and which became a 
source of continuous discord, is the inner spring which 
imparts to this so-called "period of apanages " its turbu- 
lent activity.^ 

The only good side of this state of things from the 
political point of view was that this centripetal tendency 
of the princes towards Kiev, entering the people's con- 
sciousness, became one of the agents of the idea of 
national unity. In those days only few gtand dukes 
succeeded, by imposing their authority upon the mem- 
bers of their family, in securing for the country periods 
of relative tranquillity. Among these were Yaroslav the 
Wise, and Vladimir Monomah. 

With the name of Yaroslav stands connected the 
name of the " Russian law," the first attempt of Rus- 
sian juridical codification. In its general spirit and very 

1 The numerous hypotheses by which the " system of apanages " has 
been explained are 'summed up by W. R. S. Ralston: "Early Russian 
History." On the same epoch: Evers, " Studien zur griindlichen Kennt- 
niss der Vorzeit Russland's." Dorpat, 1830. 



54 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

often in its details the " Russian law " presents a re- 
markable accord with the early legislation of other 
European countries, especially with the Frank and 
Anglo-Saxon laws. It would take us too long to enter 
into all the particulars of this interesting document, yet 
we must underline on our way its chief features. 

" Capital seems to be the most privileged person in 
this legislation." So says one of our historians,^ and 
indeed its commercial, matter-of-fact character is what 
strikes us most. Pecuniary fine is the punishment 
even in cases of murder (it is called "vira," — the 
"Wehrgeld" of the Germans), and pecuniary or ma- 
terial loss is what measures the degree of guilt. Civil 
law and criminal law are scarcely differentiated, yet a 
faint indication of the difference can be traced in those 
few cases where the crime is punished with a double 
fine, — one part going to the sufferer in compensation 
for his loss, the other to the prince as satisfaction for 
the offence against abstract morality. The so-called 
"blood vengeance" in virtue of which the assassin may 
be killed by the relations of his victim is legalized by 
the code, just as in the ancient Swedish law. It was, 
however, abolished under Yaroslav's children. Capital 
punishment as an impersonal agent of justice does 
not exist. Three social classes distinctly appear from 
this legislation. Those who are in the immediate sur- 
rounding of the prince and compose the " droujina," 
— his soldiers' company of Varegue extraction. Then 
comes the class of ordinary free men, mainly hereditary 
farmers, on the prince's land, which returns to the 
prince if male heirs should be wanting ; their life is 

^ Kluchevsky. Course of lectures on Russian History, delivered at the 
Moscow University in 1 882-1883. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 55 

estimated at half as much as the Hfe of the farmer. 
Lastly the serfs form a class which has neither property 
nor rights ; ^ the murder of a serf and the theft of a 
beaver are pvmished with an equal fine. Woman is 
always taxed half as much as man, but a woman's fin- 
ger or nose is taxed the same as a man's. The Russian 
law in this case does not enter into such minute details 
as the German, which has a different tariff for every 
finger in proportion to its importance. 

Property seems to have had a stronger guarantee 
than life : rules of pecuniary transactions, commercial 
fellowships, rights and order of succession, are firmly 
established.^ The theft of a horse is punished Avith the 
loss of all rights, property, and liberty (consider that 
ancient Saxon legislation inflicted capital punishment for 
the same crime). An interesting feature is the respect 
for foreigners : whereas two witnesses are sufficient to 
establish the guiltiness of a native, no less than seven 
are required when it is a foreigner or a Varegue. The 
privileged position accorded to the Varegue reminds one 
of the Salic law where the life of the Frank was taxed 
the double of the Gallo-Roman's life.^ From this short 
glimpse you may see that the moral educatory power of 
the code is not of great importance ; it certainly had its 
practical influence on the people's customs, but it did not 
aim at the very root of criminal tendencies ; it did not 

1 These slaves, who were supplied by prisoners of war or insolvent debt- 
ors, and were comparatively few in number, must not be confounded with 
the later serfs, — peasants who were bound to the soil at the end of the 
sixteenth century and emancipated in 1861. (See Lecture VIII.) 

^ J. Hube, " Geschichtliche Darstellung der Erbfolgerechte der Slaven." 
Posen, 1836. 

^ The comparisons with the Germanic and other laws are based on the 
" Appendix " to Vol. I of Karamsin's " History of the Russian State." 



ij 



56 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

say : " Don't do so and so, because it is wrong," but, as 
the above-quoted writer remarks, " It seemed to say : 
' Do whatever you Hke, but here is the tariff.' "^ 

Yaroslav's grandson, Vladimir Monomah, is the other 
prince of this epoch to whom we owe special attention. 
He is the typical prince, the favourite, the beloved one, 
but, better than from anything we might say, his figure 
will appear from that famous document known as 
" Monomah's will." In a short instruction the vener- 
able father gives to his children precepts of morality 
and piety, illustrating them with autobiographical exam- 
ples. So dignified is the style, so sincere the profound 
conviction in the beneficence of his advice, so humble 
the whole spirit, that these autobiographical strokes do 
not produce the slightest impression of boastfulness; 
whatever exploit he may relate, whether his eighty 
campaigns against the Polovtsy, whether the great 
dangers he had run while hunting, he always remains 
the same noble character, recommending to his children 
never to forget to say their prayers; "even when you 
ride and are not speaking to anybody, instead of think- 
ing rubbish, at least repeat these simple words : ' God 
be merciful unto me,' — this is the best of all prayers." 
"Don't think, my children," says he, "or anyone else, 
who may read these lines, that I make a show of my 
own fearlessness, I simply praise the merciful Lord for 
having preserved me during so many years. . . . The 
only thing I wish is that, after having read this epistle, 
you should perform all manner of good deeds, praising 
God and his Saints." 

Poor people, widows, children, are objects of his solici- 

1 On Russian ancient domestic life: Ewers, "Das alteste Recht der 
Russen." Dorpat, 1826. ' 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 57 

tude. Hospitality and sociability are recommended as 
virtues : " Never let anyone pass, without giving him a 
greeting, but have a good word for every man. . . . 
Honour the aged as a father, honour the young as a 
brother." He never travelled without a copy of 
David's Psalms, his favourite reading ; he was one of 
the most learned men of his time, though second to his 
father Vsevolod, of whom he says, that without having 
been abroad he spoke five languages. " Let the sun- 
rise never find you in bed," he says to his children, and 
he himself sets the example. All his time, all his 
thought were given to his country, and the chronicles 
keep a warm remembrance of him who "expended so 
much sweat for the sake of the Russian land." 

Vladimir Monomah was the last on the throne of 
Kiev who exercised a sufficient authority to command 
respect in the minor princes. After his death in 1125, 
intestine quarrels break out and the material unity of 
the country which was only just realizing the idea of its 
moral unity is so weakened, that when in 1224 the 
Tartar appears on the horizon, the princes have no 
energy for community of action ; they are defeated one 
by one, and in the first part of the thirteenth century 
the great Mongolian invasion plunges the country into 
the deep night of a barbaric tyranny. 

Such was the inner development of the country 
during the so-called ante-Mongolian period. From what 
has been said we may form an idea of its situation 
with regard to other European countries. Though 
quite a young state, Russia enters into commercial 
and diplomatic intercourse with her neighbours, and 
intermarriages with other reigning houses are main- 
tained throughout the whole period. In 911 a treaty 



58 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

is concluded with Byzantium, sanctioned by Prince 
Oleg^ and the Emperor Alexander. You remember 
Princess Olga's baptism at Constantinople; Emperor 
Constantine Porphyrogenetus in his book on the cere- 
monies of the Byzantine court gives interesting ac- 
counts of the festivities in her honour.^ A few years 
later she sends envoys to the German King (later 
Emperor) Otto the Great. Vladimir marries the Greek 
princess Anna and through her sister Theophano 
becomes the brother-in-law of Otto II. Yaroslav's 
eldest daughter Elisabeth marries the Norwegian King 
Harold, her sister Anna becomes Queen of France 
by marrying Henry I,^ Anastasia the youngest sister 
marries Andrew I of Hungaria. Vladimir Monomah's 
mother was the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Con- 
stantine Monomachus, and Vladimir himself was mar- 
ried to the daughter of the unfortunate King Harold, 
who perished at Hastings.^ All this shows how, in 
spite of the continuous incursions of nomadic tribes 
of Asia, the country kept up an uninterrupted inter- 
course with Western Europe. If we may say so, the 
doors of the country stood open during all that time. 

1 Oleg, uncle of Igor Rurik's son, ruled during his minority. 

^ " De ceremoniis aul^e Byzantinae." Lib. ii, cap. 15, ed. Bonn. 
Among these ceremonies, strange to say, the Emperor does not mention 
the ceremony of Olga's baptism. We have to infer therefore either that 
she was twice to Constantinople or that she was baptized in some other 
place (Goloubinsky, op. cit.). 

3 A fac-simile of her signature in Slavonic character under a certificate 
of the abbey of Saint-Crepin de Soisson, dated 1063, is reproduced in "La 
Russie." Paris, 1891, p. 474. 

* On the connections of Russian legends, folk-lore, and early history 
with Norway, Denmark, and other northern countries : " Antiquites Russes, 
ed. par la Societe Royale des antiquites du nord." 2 vols. Copenhagen, 
1850-1852. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 59 

But there comes the great incursion from the desert, 
the whole country is turned on her axis and all at once 
she faces Asia instead of Europe. She remains so for 
over two hundred years, and when she recovers and 
looks round her, a wall has arisen between her and 
Europe. It required another two hundred years for 
this wall to be shattered and thrown down. 

We have finished with the Kiev period of the Russian 
history. Out of the barbaric gloom " golden-headed 
Moscow " dawns. 



LECTURE III 



(1224-1613) 



The Tartar yoke. Europe and Asia — - secular struggle. The 
rise and growth of Moscow. The policy of the first Moscovian 
princes and the "collecting of the Russian land." Inner cur- 
rents of social classes. 

John III — first sovereign of unified Russia. Diplomatic 
and commercial intercourse with Europe. 

John IV the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia. A character- 
istic. Art in history and history in art. Intellectual culture 
of the time. A parallel. 



LECTURE III 

(1224-1613) 

Moskva ! How much hi that one sound 
Is rooted for a Russian heart I 
How many echoes it contains ! . . 

— POUSHKIN. 

A BREATH of terror seems to run through 
those pages of our chronicles which relate the 
events from 1224 to 1240. In the solitude of 
his cell the old monk, who has retired from the world, 
feels only too intensely the synthetic significance of 
those single facts which he fixes on the venerable parch- 
ments. The atrocities of the invasion, the massacres, 
the fires which strike others in their individual feelings 
of family and home, wound the lonely and homeless her- 
mit in his love for his fatherland ; and the tears of the 
whole country call upon God from those pages where 
the disasters of the barbaric invasion appear in the ter- 
rific simplicity of the artless narration. 

After a series of incursions in the southeastern part 
of the country the Tartar hordes at last reach the 
lower bank of the Dnieper and pitch their camp oppo- 
site Kiev. " The creaking of the cars, the bellowing of 
the oxen, and the roaring of the camels was such," says 
the chronicler, "that the citizens could not hear each 
other's voices." A desperate resistance and never- 
ceasing prayer in all churches and convents did not 

63 



64 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

save the town : when the Tartar retired and the last 
clouds of dust had vanished, swallowed up by the 
desert horizon, Kiev lay in ashes. " The sun perished 
all over the country," exclaims the chronicler, " the living 
were envying the dead." ^ But the chronicler did not 
know that the invasion whose furious waves, rolling 
over the country, were shattering against the walls of 
his cell, was itself the last wave of that moving ocean 
known as the great migration of nations ; and another 
thing the chronicler could not know is that this inva- 
sion, which was to open a period of two centuries of 
oppression for his fatherland, was only one of the acts 
in the secular struggle of two continents. 

In mythological times the Greeks go to Troy, Europe 
marches against Asia to vindicate the honour of a 
European woman, which, by the way, according to 
Herodotus,^ the Persians thought a very foolish idea. 
In antiquity the Persians invade Greece ; but Europe 
takes a glorious revenge when Alexander the Great, 
traversing Asia Minor and Persia, penetrates as far as 
the sacred banks of the rivers of India. In the times 
of the Christian era, from the depths of her deserts 
Asia pours out the hordes of her nomadic tribes. The 
Huns are thrown back by the Franks, the Avars by the 
Germans ; but from the other end, through Africa, Asia 
infiltrates again, and the Moors settle in the Pyrenean 
peninsula. The crusades are a new challenge of Eu- 
rope's, and while the nations of the west in useless efforts 
shed their blood on the soil of Palestine, the eastern 
plains become the prey of Asiatic incursions. A young 

1 On the Tartar : D'Ohsson, " Histoire des Mongols." 4 vols. Am- 
sterdam, 1 834-1 835. Von Hammer, " Geschichte der goldenen Horde." 
Pesth, 1840. 2 i^ 4, 



/ 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 65 

nation whose life had just begun, resists as long as it 
can, but when from the very centre of Asia, — from 
the sandy deserts of Mongolia, beyond which the great 
Celestial Empire lies in its millennial lethargy, — the 
nomadic empire of Chingis-Khan rises and moves to 
conquest, young Russia is dismembered and succumbs. 
Thus Europe is held by Asia on both extremities. Rely- 
ing upon these two flanks the adverse continent directs 
the attack towards the centre ; through Asia Minor the 
Ottoman Empire advances against Constantinople. Ma- 
homet II crosses the Bosphorus, effeminate and rotten 
Byzantium falls, Islam invades the sanctuary of Greek 
Christianity, and on the cupola of St. Sophia the cross 
is supplanted by the crescent. But as if the effort of 
the centre had exhausted the body, the two extremities 
simultaneously tremble and yield; the Moors are expelled 
from Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic, and Russia is 
delivered from the Tartar by John III of Moscow. 
Once more, according to the fine expression of our great 
historian Solovieff, " Asiatic quantity was overcome by 
European quality." 

The insignificant town of Moscow is mentioned for 
the first time in the annals under the date of 1147. Its 
rapid growth has always been a riddle to people. "Who 
ever would have thought or surmised," says an old 
popular song, "that Moscow was to become a kingdom, 
who ever would have guessed that Moscow would have 
to count for a state ? " It was the apanage of one of 
the younger princely branches, but the Moscovite princes 
managed so well that they soon became the eldest among 
the elder ones. The immediate result of the destruction 
of Kiev in 1240 was the gradual removal of national life 
from the desolate southwest to the woody and in those 



66 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

times less accessible northeast. The grand-ducal throne 
was transferred to Souzdal, then to Vladimir, and instead 
of the western Dnieper the eastern Volga becomes the 
main artery of the country. Thanks to this removal 
Moscow became the ethnographical centre of the coun- 
try, — • it wanted but the effort of a few intelligent rulers 
to become the political centre. 

At the beginning of the Mongolian yoke the depend- 
ence of the princes on the Tartar khans was onerous and 
humiliating. No one could take possession of the grand- 
ducal throne unless he was authorized by a khan's char- 
ter; they were forced at certain intervals to make their 
appearance in the Tartars' headquarters beyond the Volga 
(the so-called "Golden Horde ")to pay their respects and 
taxes; often they were subjected to certain ceremonies 
of oriental etiquette from which their pride revolted, but 
they had to put up with everything, for the slightest 
disobedience was punished by an incursion on their 
domains. With austere resignation they endured all ; and 
only when Prince Michael of Chernigov was summoned 
to abjure the Christian faith, compulsion proved power- 
less and he died the death of a martyr. 

But, by and by, revolt on one side and despotism on 
the other relaxed, and the forced terms between the 
princes and the .khans gradually improved. In the 
annals of the fourteenth century we already read : prince 
so-and-so was received by the khan "with honour," re- 
turned home "with honour." This "honour," which 
generally vi/^as obtained at the cost of precious gifts to 
the khan, his wives, and the whole Tartar court, becomes 
the privilege of the Moscovite princes ; care and circum- 
spection, great economy, soon make them the most 
powerful among the princes ; their pecuniary resources 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



67 



secure them the preponderance at the Tartar court, a wise 
and conciliating- policy renders them somewhat like con- 
fidants of the khans — favourites from among enemies • 
even marriages are concluded with Tartar princesses, 
who of course embrace the Christian faith. As a result, in 
1328 Prince John (called Kalita or "the purse"), though 
having no genealogical right of precedence, is recog- 
nized by the khan as Grand Duke of Russia. He feels 
so sure of himself that he does not even move to the chief 
town, Vladimir ; the Metropolitan Peter at his invitation 
settles in Moscow, and hence as the residence of the 
grand-ducal and the metropolitan thrones, this town 
becomes the political and ecclesiastical centre of the 
country. 

From this time the authority of the Prince of Mos- 
cow grows at the expense of the independence of the 
other princes. The son of John I, Simeon, is surnamed 
" the Proud," but this surname pictures far more the feel- 
ings of the minor princes than the character of him who 
was but sober and severe in his justice. " The virtues of 
the first Grand Dukes of Moscow," says one of our histo- 
rians,! " were less valorous than lucrative." And yet these 
virtues which were a family feature became the basis of a 
political system, and while in other princedoms repeated 
discords mark every change of reign, in Moscow a moral 
transmission from father to son makes of every successor 
a sort of testamentary executor of a well-premeditated 
plan. The plan consisted (i) in a territorial extension 
at the cost of the other princes, with an enforced spirit 
of centralization infused into the newly incorporated do- 
mains, and (2) an underhand preparation of military 
forces in view of the great blow to be struck against the 

1 Kluchevsky, " Course of Russian History." 



68 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Tartar when the hour should come. And they all worked 
in the expectation of this hour, no one working for 
himself, but each for the sake of that unknown successor 
under whose reign it would please Providence that the 
hour should come. 

And the hour came: in 1380, the name of the Grand 
Duke of Moscow was Dimitry, the name of the Tartar 
khan, Mamay ; Koulikovo was the name of the field 
where they met on the 8th of September. 

A beam of sunshine seems to pierce the heavy clouds 
which were overhanging the country. Few moments 
in history can be compared to the solemnity of the 
departure of the Grand Duke of Moscow at the head of 
the first great Russian army, marching against the one 
great enemy of the country. The old chronicler, the faith- 
ful recorder of national distress and national joy, pictures 
with radiant colours of hopeful anticipation the exodus of 
this army. St. Serge, the revered prior of the Trinity 
Convent near Moscow, blesses the soldiers on their way 
and appoints two monks, Oslab and Peresvet, to accom- 
pany the Grand Duke to the battle. Two scenes emerge 
from the past, when the name of Koulikovo is recalled to 
our memory. We see, in the misty freshness of a Sep- 
tember morning, amidst his soldiers, who have just been 
ranged for the battle. Prince Dimitry kneeling on the |/ 
ground and praying under his grand-ducal banner, the 
black banner with the golden picture of the Saviour ; and 
we see, in the golden sunset of a September evening, 
Prince Dimitry lying under a tree, recovering from a blow 
received in the battle and asking who were the winners. 
Already the trumpets had proclaimed the Russian victory. 

With Dimitry the preparatory period of Russia's lib- 
eration is finished; his successors inaugurate a policy 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 69 

of frank hostility against Mamay's successors. A series 
of intelligent rulers, working always on the ground en- 
riched already by the successful work of their predeces- 
sors, consolidate the power of Moscow and relax the 
bonds of the Mongolian dependence. In 1480 John III 
effects the complete emancipation. The Tartar King- 
dom is dismembered ; its scattered members live on for 
a time; the kingdoms of Kasan and Astrakhan are 
conquered by John the Terrible eighty years later, the 
Tartars of the Crimea preserve their independence till 
as late as the reign of Catherine the Great. 

At the accession of John III in 1462 the political 
pre-eminence of Moscow stands established. This 
sovereign closes the old period of the Moscovian 
Grand Duchy and opens the new period of the Mosco- 
vian Kingdom. The principle of federative equality 
in the relations between Moscow and the other prince- 
doms, which had been dying away during the preceding 
century, is definitively supplanted by the monarchical 
principle. Let us examine the inner currents by which 
this change has been brought about. It will at the 
same time throw a retrospective light on the preceding 
period and mark the conditions which determine the 
direction of further historical development. 

The extension of the Princedom of Moscow was a 
fact of incalculable historical importance not because 
of the centrifugal tendency it imparted to the territorial 
expansion, but because of the centripetal direction it 
gave to the consciousness of all social classes, beginning 
with the princes themselves at whose cost the Moscovian 
territory grew. At first the incorporation of one apa- 
nage after another by the Grand Duke of Moscow had 
a character of violence, but soon it assumed a more or 



70 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

less normal character. Many princes of themselves 
abdicated their rights and passed their domains over 
to their elder comrade ; others, who had no children, 
made wills in favour of Moscow ; later this was erected 
into a rule, and even when there was no will, the apa- 
nage of a childless prince was annexed, and similarly the 
apanage which remained after the death of a dowager 
princess ; marriages were another means of extension. 

With what rapidity the Princedom grew may be seen 
from the fact that at John Ill's accession the territory of 
Moscow was fifteen thousand square miles, while under 
this prince and his son Basil, i.e. in the course of sixty 
years, it annexed forty thousand square miles of terri- 
tory. The consequences of this growth of what the 
chronicles call "the collecting of the Russian land" 
were of greater importance than we might expect from 
a simple territorial extension. The first consequence 
was of a social character. We have just said that the 
centripetal tendency invaded all classes. The minor 
princes, deprived of their domains, all come to Moscow 
and settle round the Kremlin ; they become the stock 
of the higher aristocracy and by a sort of compen- 
sation for their fresh wounds they are invested with 
the pre-eminent official functions. They command the 
army, they rule the different provinces. But having 
abdicated their territorial rights, they do not forget 
their dynastic proximity to the ruling grand duke : it is 
not easy to keep all these cousins and uncles at respect- 
ful distance ; relations get more and more strained, and 
we shall see to what stress they come under the reign 
of John the Terrible. The next class, the members of 
the princely droujina, began a long time ago to prefer 
the rich and powerful Moscovian grand dukes to their 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 71 

different minor princes ; as their service had no com- 
pulsory character and they were bound by no obH- 
gation, they were perfectly free to pass from one 
chief to another ; by their going over to Moscow they 
at the same time effected the reinforcement of the 
grand duke and the weakening of the lesser princes. 
Lastly the peasants, the agricultural class, who at 
this time were not yet bound to the territory but 
free to pass from one landowner to another, naturally 
preferred to settle round the rich and populous chief 
town. 

Such were the currents of social classes which were 
set in movement by the rising authority of the grand 
dukes, and which by that same movement furthered a 
still greater growth of this authority. By a mutual 
influence of cause and consequence those same ele- 
ments which had undergone the attraction towards 
the centre contributed to its further exaltation. 

Dimitry, the vanquisher of Mamay, is the first grand 
duke who by will disposes of the grand-ducal throne, 
and leaves it to his eldest son : that which till then 
had been an abstract principle, sanctioned by the 
Tartar khan, thus becomes an act of individual decision. 
From this time the succession of the elder son is 
always established by the will of the father ; some- 
times, to prevent misunderstandings, the son is crowned 
during his father's life and appointed co-regent; the 
wills of the grand dukes make more and more differ- 
ence between the eldest and the other sons ; and John 
the Terrible in his will leaves the whole country to his 
eldest son and only one province to the second, and this 
one province is no longer an independent domain but 
an inseparable part of the kingdom : the Tsar's brother 



72 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

becomes a landowner, but no other ruler is left in the 
country except the Tsar. 

These were the consequences, from the point of view 
of inner politics of Moscow's growth ; it had still 
another result, if not of deeper, at any rate of wider, 
importance. Till the middle of the fourteenth century 
Moscow was a Central Russian princedom, surrounded 
by Russian neighbours ; consequently it never knew 
what exterior politics meant ; all relations outside its 
own frontier were more or less friendly, but always 
of a domestic character. Diplomacy did not exist. John 
III is the first prince who, ascending the throne of 
the Princedom of Moscow, realizes that he stands on 
the throne of all the Russias. The inner barriers built 
up by family discords and personal ambition fall down 
and are levelled by the great mass of homogeneous 
population, speaking one language, converging to one 
centre. And when the first " Lord and Grand Duke 
of all the Russias," etc., standing on his throne directs 
his look beyond the frontiers of his country, he sees 
that the Russian land has foreign neighbours : on the 
northwest, the Swedes, on the west, the Order of the 
Teutonic Knights, — Lithuania and Poland ; and on 
the southwest, the Turkish Empire ; and all along that 
western frontier, from the north down to Kiev, he sees 
ancient Russian provinces, the first ones, Russia's 
cradle, torn away and incorporated by Poland. This 
is what John III beheld, and what others before him 
had had no time to realize, occupied as they were with 
the Tartar and the " collecting of the Russian land." 
And as John III was the first who saw his foreign neigh- 
bours, he was also the first who made himself seen. 

The reappearance of the Russian prince on the 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 73 

European scene after an absence of over two hundred 
years is interesting, and takes place under rather pict- 
uresque circumstances. 

Byzantium had just fallen. The family of the last 
Emperor, Constantine Palasologus, had fled to Rome and 
were living under the protection of the Pope. In 1469 
an ambassador from Rome comes to Moscow, and in 
the name of Pope Paul II offers the Grand Duke the 
hand of Princess Sophia Palaeologus, daughter of the 
last Emperor's brother and the Duchess of Ferrara. 
The Grand Duke declines to give his consent before 
sending an embassy of his own to Rome. Meanwhile 
Pope Paul II dies, and the news reaches Moscow that 
Calixtus has been elected. In January the embassy 
leaves Moscow, having at its head an Italian who 
has been living there for some time past. On their 
way they learn that it is not Calixtus but Sixtus who 
has been elected ; they scratch out the wrong name 
from the Grand Duke's letter, substitute the right one, 
and in May they get to Rome. On the 25th, Sixtus IV 
receives the Moscovite ambassadors, who hand to him 
the Grand Duke's letter and sixty sable skins. On the 
first of June, in St. Peter's Church, Sophia Palaeologus 
is betrothed by proxy to John III. On the 24th 
of June she leaves Rome and — -via Lubeck, the Baltic 
Sea, Reval, Pskoff — arrives in Moscow on the 12th 
of November, escorted by the Pope's legate and the 
ambassadors sent by her two brothers.^ The pomp, 
the political importance of this marriage, just suited 

^ One of her brothers later came twice to Moscow and married his 
daughter to one of the Russian princes. This prince does not seem to 
have been on good terms either with his brother-in-law or his father-in- 
law, and by will passed over his rights to the Byzantine throne to Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella of Spain. 



74 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

the ambitions of John III ; it made him the immediate 
successor of the Byzantine emperors ; thus it was 
accepted by his contemporaries, thus he meant it him- 
self, when he adopted the Byzantine double-headed 
eagle as the coat of arms of Russia. For the first 
time etiquette is introduced at court, copied chiefly 
from the Byzantine ceremonial. 

Such was the gate through which this sovereign 
entered history, passing over the threshold of a new 
period. His contemporaries seem to have realized the 
new importance which the figure of the monarch had 
assumed. In his allocution to the Grand Duke, on the 
day of his crowning, the Metropolitan called him, " Glo- 
rious Tsar and Autocrat.'' We hardly can in our days 
measure the sense the word "autocrat" must have had 
at that moment, pronounced for the first time, by the 
head of the Church, and resounding after two hundred 
years of a humiliating yoke. It was the solemn recog- 
nition of the only force which proved to have the power 
of reconstituting the national unity. It was the his- 
torical homage of gratitude to the only principle which 
proved to be firm amidst the instability of the other 
elements of national life. 

John III, indeed, opened the chief questions which 
have determined the subsequent historical development 
of the country. By overthrowing the Tartar yoke he in- 
augurates the aggressive policy against Asia. Not only 
will Russia not suffer from new incursions, but she 
will prevent the very possibility of their, reiteration by 
rendering herself master of those regions whence the 
invasions had spread.^ As the end of this policy, which 

1 "It wanted all the western ignorance of Russian affairs," says A. Le- 
roy-Beaulieu, " to speak of ' sending Russians back to their steppes, whence 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 75 

led to the annexation of Siberia by John the Terrible 
in 1582/ we have ourselves seen the first rails of the 
great trans-Siberian line laid by the Emperor Nicholas 
II, at the time heir to the throne, when he landed on 
the Pacific coast in May, 1891.^ The question on the 
western frontier of the reincorporation of the old Rus- 
sian provinces was handed over, by John III to his pos- 
terity as one of the most burning questions of national 
history. Its definite solution, postponed from time to 
time by a continuous widening of interests, led to the 
Swedish wars of Peter the Great ; the conquest of 
the Baltic shores, the foundation of St. Petersburg, and 
the formation of the Russian fleet. 

Under John III the first relations with Western Eu- 
rope begin. An embassy is exchanged with the Ger- 
man Emperor Frederick IV, who asks for the hand of 
one of John's daughters for his son Maximilian ; ^ it, 
however, had no result. 

Of greater consequence were the embassies ex- 
changed with Italy, especially with Venice.* The Rus- 

they ought never to have moved.' Far from coming from the steppes, the 
Russians entered them at a comparatively recent epoch." (" L'Empire 
des Tsars." Paris, 1 883-1889. T. i, 1. i, chap. iii. English translation, 
Putnam & Co., New York.) 

^ On Russia's colonizing movement : A. Brueckner, " Europaisirung 
Russland's." Gotha, 1888, chap. iv. 

^Prince Ookhtomsky, "Journey of the Tsarevich." 2 vols. Edin- 
burgh. Constable, 1895. O^ "Siberia and the Great Siberian Railway." 
Vol. V of " The Industries of Russia. Composed by order of the Ministry 
of Finance for the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago." 5 vols. 
St. Petersburg, 1893. 

^ What would have become of European history had Maximilian I mar- 
ried a Russian princess and not Mary of Burgundy ? 

* On Russian early embassies abroad : A. Brueckner, " Beitrage zur 
Kulturgeschichte." 



76 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 



/ 



sian Grand Duke, wishing to adorn his capital with stone 
buildings, sent to Venice for an architect. Fioravanti, 
called Aristoteles, was delegated by Doge Marcello, and 
from this time dates that queer architecture which is 
like the petrification of the old Russian wooden style. 
The chief cathedrals, the beautiful white wall, and all 
the splendour of the "golden-headed" Kremlin date 
from this reign.^ 

An interesting episode of Moscow's relations with 
Italy is the participation of the Metropolitan Isidor at the 
ecclesiastical council, convoked by Pope Eugene IV in 
1438 at Florence, while the grand-ducal throne in Mos- 
cow was occupied by John Ill's father, Basil the Gloomy. 
The Byzantine Emperor, John Palaeologus,^ had hoped 
a reconciliation of the Greek and Roman churches would 
help to strengthen him against the advancing march of 
the Ottoman forces ; he went to Italy and became the 
zealous promoter of the council. The sessions began 
in the autumn, first at St. George's Church in Ferrara ; 
in January they were transferred to the church of Santa 
Maria Novella at Florence. On the 6th of July the 
close of the council was celebrated with a pontifical 
mass. Yet it had no practical result : the eastern 
churches did not adopt the decision of their repre- 
sentatives, who accepted the recognition of the Pope's 
supremacy. The Metropolitan Isidor, returning to 
Moscow, was declared apostate and had to flee ; he 

1 On Russian architecture: Viollet-le-Duc, " L'art Russe." Paris, 1877. 
On the Kremlin : Weltmann, " Souvenirs historiques du Kremlin de Mos- 
cow." Moscow, 1843. Fabricius, " Le Kremlin de Moscow." Moscow, 
1883. On Russian antiquities: "Antiquites de I'Empire de Russie." 
6 vols, in folio. Moscow, 1849-1853. Solutsev, "Antiquities of the Rus- 
sian State." 6 vols, plates and 6 vols, text (Russian). Moscow, 1849. 

2 He was married to Basil's daughter, Anna. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 77 

died in Rome, a cardinal. In the Laurentian Library 
^ of the St. Lawrence Church at Florence you may 
see an ornamented document, hanging in a frame 
which is chained to the wall — it is the act of the 
Florentine council : among the Latin and Greek signa- 
tures which follow those of the Pope and the Emperor 
you may see in red Slavonic characters the signature 
of the "humble minister of God, Isidor, Metropolitan 
of Russia."^ 

Under John Ill's son, Basil, the Austrian baron, 
Herberstein, twice came to Moscow, once in 15 16, 
sent by the Emperor Maximilian I ; the next time, on 
Charles V's part in 1526. More valuable for us than 
the orders he brought with him are the impressions 
he received and took home. His " Rerum Moscovi- 
tarum Commentarii " are one of the most precious 
documents in the bibliography of foreign writings con- 
cerning ancient Russia.^ 
y Under the reign of Basil's son, John IV the Terrible, 
the first commercial relations with England were estab- 
lished. The English merchants envying the Spanish 
and Portuguese for the successes of their commerce 
brought about by their geographical discoveries, decided 
to find some new resources for themselves. A society 
was founded "ior the discovery of unknown lands," and 
in May, 1553, several vessels left the Thames provided 
with a letter of Edward VI, " to the sovereigns of eastern 



1 On later relations of Moscow with the Vatican : Le P. PierHng, S. J., 
"Rome at Moscow (1547-1579)." Paris, 1883. " Gregoire XIII et Ivan 
le Terrible." (" Revue des questions historiques." Avril, 1883.) 

2 The first Latin edition in Vienna, 1549. Translated into several lan- 
guages. The English translation, published by the Hakluyt Society in 
1851-1852 : " Notes upon Russia." 2 vols. 



78 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

and northern countries." The next year Captain Chan- 
cellor, commander of one of these ships, enters the mouth 
of the Northern Dwina ; he gets ashore and goes to Mos- 
cow. He is kindly received by the Tsar and dismissed 
with a letter for King Edward. In 1555, the same Chan- 
cellor reappears in Moscow as an official envoy of King 
Philip and Queen Mary. At the end of the negotiations 
the English merchants are given the privilege of free 
trade in all parts of the country. When in 1557 the am- 
bassador of John IV came to London, Russian mer- 
chants were granted the same privilege in England.^ 

Thus it is by way of the Arctic Ocean that Russia 
feels the first contact of the world's commercial move- 
ment. She might have felt it from another side, — from 
her territorial frontier, and she even hoped to do so : sev- 
eral times artisans and artists had been asked for and 

1 All documents concerning these negotiations in : " The First Forty 
Years of Intercourse between England and Russia." Documents collected, 
copied, and edited by George Tolstoi, St. Petersburg, 1875; ^'^° ^^ ^°^- 
xxviii, of the Russian Imperial Historical Society. 

An interesting contemporary book : Giles Fletcher, " Of the Russe 
Common Wealth or Manner of Governement by the Russe Emperor com- 
monly called the Emperour of Moscovia with the manners and fashions of 
the people of the country. At London. Printed by T. D. for Thomas 
Chare, 1591." (A bibliographical rarity, reprinted in Ed. A. Bond's " Rus- 
sia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century." London, 1856.) 

G. Fletcher (1565-1610), student of Eton and Cambridge, was sent to 
Moscow in 1588; he speiit two years in Russia, and returning to London 
published his book in 1591. His work contains many valuable details 
though very insufficient in its appreciations and deductions. The careless- 
ness with which he treated his subject appears clearly enough from his state- 
ment that Russia has neither written history npr written law, whereas at 
that time Russia possessed the "Annals," the "Russian Law," the "Code 
of John III " (1497) and the "Code of John IV" (1550). Too much credit 
is paid to accounts of Fletcher, Horsay, and other " contemporaries " by 
W. R. MorfiU, in his " Story of Russia " (in the series " The Story of Nations," 
New York, 1891), for the rest a very conscientious and valuable work. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 79 

sent, but our nearest neighbours never allowed them to 
^ pass the Russian frontier. In 1547 Charles V, who then 
was at the Diet of Augsburg, gave to the Tsar's envoy a 
permit conferring upon him the right of recruiting, in the 
confines of the Empire, learned and skilled men to be 
taken over to Russia. A hundred and twenty-three arti- 
sans were ready to sail from Liibeck, but they were 
arrested in consequence of Livonian intrigue ; one of 
them attempting to escape to Moscow was executed by 
the German Knights of the Teutonic Order. The mag- 
istrates of Riga even extorted from Charles V a written 
promise that no more artisans should be sent to Russia. 
No, the western frontier was no junction; it was care- 
fully watched and made into a barrier. Listen to what 
King Sigismund Augustus of Poland writes to Queen 
Elizabeth of England : — 

"As we have written afore, so now we write againe to 
your Ma*?" that we know and feele of a surety the Mos- 
covite dayly to grow mightier by the increse of such things 
as be brought to the Narue,-^ while not onely wares but 
also weapons heretofore vnknowen to him, and artificers 
and arts be brought vnto him : by meane whereof he 
maketh himselfe strong to vanquish all others. Which 
things, as long as this voyage to Narue is vsed, can not be 
stopped. And we perfectly know your Ma'-^ can not be 
ignorant of what force he is. We seemed hitherto to 
vanquish him onely in this, that he was rude of arts, and 
ignorant of policies. If so be that this navigation to 
the Narue continue, what shall be vnknowen to him .? " ^ 

^ Now Narva, a town connected with the Baltic by the river Narova. 

^ G. Tolstoi, op. cit. The original contains a few remarks on John's 
personal character; we leave them out as having no importance in this 
case : in a political system psychological considerations are a pretext, not an 
argument. 



8o PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

The precautions of the King of Poland were useless ; 
the difficulties and risks of those frozen regions which 
Chancellor had to traverse did not prevent Russia from 
being "discovered" independently of Narva. The uni- 
fying spirit which works in the world had overcome 
the greatest obstacles of Nature : what were the partial 
efforts of national division ? ^ 

The intercourse with foreigners has made us deviate 
for a while from our main subject — the inner growth 
of the political elements ; let us take up the interrupted 
thread. As you saw, the sovereign of Moscow grew, 
surrounded by the newly rising class of the titled 
nobility, descendants of the deposed minor princes. 
The authority of the Grand Duke grew, as a result of 
the dynastic decay of the aristocracy ; the importance 
of the aristocracy grew in consequence of its proximity 
to the rising throne. Thanks to such a simultaneous 
growth of these two elements, towards the beginning of 
the fifteenth century Moscow presents an absolute mon- 
archy with an aristocratic government; the "Douma," 
composed of the chief representatives of the aristoc- 
racy, becomes somewhat like a plural counsellor. But 
in spite of this well-established political form the two 
elements did not assimilate ; the inner harmony was 
troubled by passions and was too much dependent 
upon individual character. This fully appeared when 
the absolute power passed into the hands of such a 
character as John the Terrible. 

In 1547 the grandson of John III crowns himself 
first Tsar of Russia. The title, a Russified abbrevia- 

1 On foreign travellers in Russia : Adelung, " Kritisch-literarische 
Uebersicht der Reisenden in Russland bis 1700, deren Berichte bekannt 
sind." St. Petersburg, 1864. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



tion of the Latin "Caesar," appears before; John III 
and Basil were often called "Tsar," yet never in offi- 
cial acts. The beginnings of John IV prognosticate a 
brilliant reign. Intelligent and well-intentioned coun- 
sellors surround the young sovereign ; a beautiful woman 
of high moral qualities is chosen by the Tsar to be his 
wife ; Anastasia Romanov becomes his guardian angel, 
quickens the good aspirations of his character, and 
dulls the instincts of him who will be called "the Ter- 
rible," or more correctly, "the thunder-stormy." Ka- 
zan and Astrakhan, the two Tartar kingdoms which 
still survive on the Volga, are overthrown and annexed ; 
a work of legislation is begun ; the war with Sweden, 
Livonia, and Poland begins the interminable struggle 
which is destined to clear the way from Moscow to 
Europe. But the brilliant period does not last. Anas- 
tasia Romanov dies, and with her death the handle of 
John's moral tiller breaks. 

One day during a very bad illness he was lying in 
bed, and by chance overheard a violent dispute in the 
next room : the boyars were discussing the succession 
to the throne, and from his bed the Tsar could hear 
that they nearly all were refusing to execute his Will 
— to take the oath in favour of his son. They did 
not care to have Anastasia's family secure political 
preponderance at their cost : the Romanovs were a 
younger family than they were and did not descend 
from Rurik, — so strong as yet was the feeling of their 
dynastic relationship to the ruling house.^ The dying 

1 And yet, such were the trials of the following period which ended with 
the "times of confusion," so entirely was that dynastic pride suppressed 
by the levelling force of a common national danger, that sixty years later a 
youth of this same family was elected to the throne just because he was not 
one of themselves. 

G 



82 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Tsar listened to the criticism of his Will ; and all the 
intrigue which had surrounded his fatherless child- 
hood at once came back to his memory. He is filled 
with disgust, mistrust glides into his heart and awakens 
suspicion in his mind. He does not die ; he recovers, 
but he arises from the couch another man. 

One day the population of Moscow learned with 
amazement that the Tsar had unexpectedly left the town 
with his whole court and made off for one of his sub- 
urban residences. A month later two briefs came to 
Moscow : in the one the Tsar declared himself the friend 
and protector of the people ; in the other he covered 
with reproach the nobility and the clergy ; finally he 
declared that he would nevermore return to his capital. 
Never before had history seen a sovereign who was 
pouting at his country, and this is what it was, and 
so it remained until the end. Unfortunately this pout- 
ing was not inactive ; he virtually put himself out of his 
own country. The kingdom was divided into two parts : 
the whole land on one side, and the sovereign and his 
immediate surrounding on the other. This immediate 
surrounding, forming the Tsar's personal guard of about 
a thousand men, became the terror of the country. They 
were called " oprichniky," from the word " oprich," " out- 
side," meaning that they were put "outside" the law 
and had to fear nothing in accomplishing their duty of 
hunting down the Tsar's enemies. Their ensign — a 
dog's head and a broom hanging on each side of their 
saddle ; — was the emblems of the qualities required for 
"sweeping away treason." A terrible epoch began, — 
terrible for everybody, — although the Tsar had declared 
himself the friend of the people. By hundreds, by 
thousands, were counted the victims whose names were 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 85 

inscribed by order of the Tsar in the diptychs of differ- 
ent convents in order that prayers should be offered for 
the salvation of their souls. 

All that slumbered in that dark and enigmatic char- 
acter by and by came to the surface ; his instincts sud- 
denly overcame his talents, and the latter reappear 
thereafter only when he sees that anybody holds them 
in doubt : then suddenly he rises in all the brightness 
of his versatility. In his correspondence with Prince 
Kourbsky, one of his worst enemies, who had fled to the 
Polish king, he shows himself one of the most learned 
men of his time ; his letters swarm with quotations from 
Scripture, from Greek and Latin authors ; in his diplo- 
matic intercourse he is a proud and self-conscious head 
of that same country which at home he treats as an 
enemy ; in his writings of a semi-lyrical, semi-religious 
character he is humble, subdued, crushed under the 
weight of his crimes, annihilated by repentance. But 
let a foreign sovereign refuse him one of his titles, 
his susceptibility is on fire ; in his care for his dynastic 
dignity he is sometimes almost childish. " We are 
descended from Caesar Augustus ; it is known to every- 
body," he says to the envoy of the King of Poland.^ 
But to whatever passion he may give way, it is 
always with theatrical effect. He likes the pomp of 
executions, the picturesqueness of tortures, the magnifi- 
cence of massacres : he loves the sumptuousness of 
religious ceremonies, but he prefers the rigidity of the 
humble cell where he retires from the wickedness of 

1 This genealogy by and by received official sanction : in the charter on 
the election of Michael Romanov (1613) Rurik is represented as direct 
descendant of Augustus, Emperor of the Romans. (" Collection of State 
Charters and Treaties," No. 203, vol. i. St. Petersburg, 1813.) 



84 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

the world, where he contemplates the ulcers of his 
soul ; he delights to confess his sins, he is touched by 
the sight of his own repentance.^ Strange to say, this 
mighty despot was a feeble character ; he could not 
stand out against contradiction ; he was clever, bright, 
eloquent only on paper or when he knew that^ he would 
not be interrupted; but he could not discuss : the moment 
he was contradicted he became furious and nothing else. 
Under such conditions this theatric disposition became 
a means of isolating himself, of cutting short all attempts 
at contradiction ; any man can be tempted to enter into 
a discussion, but who ever will dare to interrupt the 
course of a theatrical performance ! Thus he built up 
something like a fortress behind which he felt unassail- 
able and safe. Such was the man who till 1584 occu- 
pied the throne of Moscow. 

The character of John the Terrible is a point on 
which the greatest divergency of opinion is shown by 
our historians. Some make of him the central figure of 
the whole ante-petrine epoch. Overlooking the defects 
of his character and the d^ark sides of his reign, they 
put in evidence his talents, which came to the front 
under propitious circumstances, when suspicion was 
dulled and cruelty not provoked ; they make him the 
pivot of the Moscovite period, — a sort of Peter the 
Great to whom history refused opportunities. Others 
see nothing except a crazy despot who, for a while 
at the beginning of his reign, had experienced the 
beneficent influence of a few good counsellors and 
an intelligent and loving wife, but afterwards showed 
nothing but cruelty, animalism, and hypocrisy. These 

1 C. Aksakov, one of the leaders of the Slavophile party, was the first 
to put into light this side of John's character. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 85 

make him a sort of Russian Nero ; worse than the 
Roman — for he was a Christian, at least lived in Chris- 
tian times and professed Christianity. A man who 
can be estimated so differently would furnish an inter- 
esting subject for psychological studies even if he had 
been a private individual ; but in this case the quali- 
ties which determine such contradictory judgments hap- 
pen to be those of a sovereign, — a sovereign whose 
ancestors present a gradual rising of monarchical self- 
consciousness, whose grandfather had been called " au- 
tocrat" by the head of the Church, and who himself, 
considering himself the culminating point of this his- 
torical ascension, takes the title of Tsar of Russia." His 
.was one of those richly endowed personalities which 
contain the germs of every kind of development ; 
Nature seems to have equally equipped them for 
vice or virtue and to have insisted upon no prefer- 
ences : the realization of their character is made an 
act of their individual choice, whether they give the 
pre-eminence to talents or to instincts.^ In this case 
psychology may plead extenuating circumstances, — 
history takes count of facts and registers the implaca- 
ble verdict of the national memory. It is to be de- 
plored that the normal growth of the political body 
which was only just ready to be settled and consolidated 
was suddenly interrupted by the intervention of a man 
abnormal in every way, a sovereign of great political 
wisdom, yet only in theory. By reducing interests of 
internal policy to questions of personal security, he sus- 

^ ". . . and the greater the soul of a man, the more it is capable of 
undergoing the influence of good, — the deeper does it fall in the abyss of 
crime, the more does it harden in evil. Such was John." (Belinsky, Works, 
vol. ii. In Russian.) 



86 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

pended the historical development of his country ; by 
killing his eldest son in a fit of rage, he occasioned the 
extinction of the dynasty ; by leaving the throne to his 
second son, the feeble-minded and childless Theodor,^ 
he opened the way for the trials by which the country 
had to expiate his crimes. Few epochs in history offer 
an accumulation of such disasters as those which befell 
Russia after his reign : three impostors assuming the 
name of Dimitry, an infant son of John the Terrible, 
who had perished under the knife of a murderer ; ^ the 
invasion of the Polish army, the occupation of Moscow ; 
gangs of robbers, and an ever-increasing anarchy fill 
those terrible years known as "times of confusion."^ 
Fifteen years of chaotic fermentation separate the 
death of the last royal descendant of Rurik in 1598, 
from the election of the first Romanov in 161 3. The 

1 A touching character, this last offspring of the dynasty; but times 
were too hard, and historical circumstances required another sovereign than 
he who, according to the chronicles, had " all his life avoided vanities of 
the world and thought of nothing but heavenly things." The description 
of Theodor's coronation by J. Horsey : Appendix No. I to Bond's " Rus- 
sia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century." A tragedy by Count Alexis 
Tolstoi : " Feodor Ivanovich." German translation by Mr. C. Pavloff. 
Dresden, 1869. 

2 On these times : Prosper Merimee, " Les faux Demetrius." Paris, 
1853. Le P. Pierling, S. J., " Rome et Demetrius." Paris, 1878. The 
first False Dimitry has often been treated by dramatists (with more or less 
historical truth) : Poushkin, " Boris Godounoff." French translation by 
Tourgenieff and Viardot. English translation and abridgment, by Nathan 
Haskell Dole, Poet Lo7'e, 1890. Soumarokof, " Dimitry the Impostor." Eng- 
lish translation. London, 1806. Schiller, " Demetrius." General Alexan- 
der, "Dramatic Sketch from Russian History." London, 1876. 

^ An interesting contemporary work by a Dutch traveller : " Histoire 
des guerres de la Moscovie (1601-1610) par Isaac Massa de Haarlem, 
publiee pour la premiere fois d'apres le Ms. hollanHais original de 1610 
avec d'autres opuscules sur la Russie et des annotations par le Pr. Michel 
Obolensky et M. le Dr. A. Van der Linde." 2 vols. Brussels, 1866. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



"Thunder-stormy " Tsar disappeared, but he left a pro- 
found furrow ; it took the country a long time to recover 
from the persecutions of his reign. 

And yet so strong is the prestige of character that 
/ John the Terrible had his admirers. While science dis- 
cusses his greater or less value from the point of view of 
historic morality, art, greedy of pure picturesqueness, 
takes possession of this fantastic despot whose palace 
presents an intermingling of orgies in the glittering frame 
of Byzantine luxury, with litanies and processions mov- 
ing in the religious twilight of monastic rigidity. His 
ungainly figure in the monk's floating cassock, his aqui- 
line nose, his small and piercing eyes, the velvet skull- 
cap, the bony fist clenching the famous iron staff which 
broke the skull of his son, the big cross on his breast, 
and the open Bible on his knees, have been perpetuated 
and handed over to future generations by painting, 
sculpture, poetry, drama.^ Thus he who, during his 
life, had been hated and feared, through the removing 
distance of centuries and the refracting prism of art 
becomes an object of admiration. There is a sort of 
compensation in the fact that he who had so often 
made a stage play of his own life, should become such 
a fruitful artistic subject after his death. As light trans- 
pierces the dull piece of coal and transfigures it into a 
diamond, so art, getting hold sometimes of the saddest 
facts of life, penetrates into them and raises them, ac- 

1 "The death of John the Terrible," tragedy in five acts, by Count Alexis 
Tolstoi. German translation by Mr. C. Pavloff. Dresden, 1868. English 
translation by T. H. Harrison. London, 1869. A fine character of John 
the Terrible in a novel by the same: "Prince Serebriany." English 
translation by Captain Filmore; also by Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, 1892). 
Italian translation by Patuzzi in " Perseveranza." 1872. On Count Alexis 
Tolstoi: A. De Gubernatis, "II Conte AUessio Tolstoi." Firenze, 1874. 



88 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

cording to Gogol's expression, into "a jewel of crea- 
tion." 

Strange is the aspect historical events assume when 
looked at under the optic angle of art; they seem to 
lose the vital value of plants rooted in the soil ; art 
removes them out of life, makes them somewhat innox- 
ious ; the most terrible acts flatter our senses and do not 
hurt our feelings ; by a sort of distillation their venom- 
ousness is evaporated, and instead of alarming us by 
revolting our sense of morality, as they do in life, they 
rejoice us by exciting our aesthetic enthusiasm. Here 

r lies the danger of an artistic temperament for an histori- 
cal writer. Picturesqueness and morality do not always 
go hand in hand, and an historian with an excessive 
aesthetic sensibility must feel inclined to extenuate the 
moral reprehensiveness of a picturesque character or fact. 
We touch here the interesting and as yet scarcely elu- 
cidated point of the moral value of aesthetical emotions. 
What art does with historical events it does with facts 
of daily life ; it picks out human passions and human 
sufferings, it transplants them from life into a world of 
fiction. We go to the theatre, and we sympathize with 
what we see, and we suffer and weep, and we are thor- 
oughly persuaded that we are looking at real human pain 
and weep real human tears, whereas we are looking at 
the representation of human pain and weep not vital but 

'C aesthetical tears. Does the difference not appear clearly 
enough ? The sight of real human pain hurts or dis- 

. gusts; the representation of human pain procures de- 
light : real vital tears burn ; aesthetical tears — in the 
theatre for instance — are a test of good acting, the 
proof of our enjoyment, for had we no enjoyment of it we 
should never go to the theatre. Evidently those human 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 89 

sufferings which unroll themselves on the stage are 
transfigured sufferings, and the process of transfigura- 
tion consists in rendering them harmless, incapable of 
wounding. Imagine we might approach, as it were a 
gigantic aquarium, the under-water world on the bottom 
of the ocean, and through the transparency of the 
crystal wall contemplate without any danger for our- 
selves the monsters moving behind it. Just so we con- 
template the picture of human sufferings in the theatre ; 
their sting is blunted, their venomousness is neutralized, 
they touch our excitability, but they spare our vulnera- 
bility. Accordingly, if the instrument of art is de- 
prived of poison and edge,- the feelings it produces 
must be deprived of painfulness ; and, indeed, instead 
of hurting, as they would under similar circumstances 
in life, they fascinate, they are delightful, and we indulge 
in them. 

It is easy to conceive how wrong it would be to adopt 
that artistic way of looking at human sufferings, and 
to practise it outside the domain of art; what great 
faults a historian might commit by applying the aestheti- 
cal standard to historical events : the integrity of his 
judgment can be corrupted at its root by aesthetical 
considerations. 

I fear we have lost sight of our subject, but we will 
not apologize : a critic said that digressions were old- 
fashioned, but that still more old-fashioned were apolo- 
gies for digressions ; so we shall not apologize. Let 
us throw a rapid glance on the intellectual culture of 
this long period from the Tartar invasion in 1224 to the 
"times of confusion" which preceded the election of 
the first Romanov in 161 3. 

The unfortunate country which at the beginning of 



90 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

its history had been thrown against Asia, seemed to con- 
centrate all its forces into this struggle, and when the 
'^hour of liberation came, the intellectual culture stood 
on the same point, and perhaps lower, than at the hour 
of subjugation. The monasteries continued their work 
of copying and translating, but it was always in the 
narrow circle of Christian Byzantinism. There were 
learned men among the clergy and at the court, yet 
their learning had a hopeless character of sterility ; it 
w^as reduced to the knowledge of a certain number of 
books, intellectual culture consisted not in a widening of 
the brain but in its being stuffed with quotations. Such 
appears to us the learning of John the Terrible, and 
he was one of the most learned of his time. The word 
" science " was not even known in those days ; the nar- 
row and limited " skill " or " craft " was used in its place. 
Attempts at bringing over trained artificers from West- 
ern Europe had been made — we have seen their sad 
results. At the end of the sixteenth century several 
Russian youths were sent abroad for the purpose of 
studying — they never returned. 

In 1563 John the Terrible founded the first Russian 
printing-press, assisted by the advice of the Metropoli- 
tan Makarius and the learned Greek Maximus, a friend 
of Aldus Manucius of Venice.^ An eminent man of 
that time was the above-mentioned Prince Kourbsky, the 
correspondent of John the Terrible. Besides his let- 
ters, where he shows far more real and well-assimi- 
lated learning than his most august correspondent, he 
left a " Story of the Grand Duke of Moscow, and the 
deeds which we have learned from reliable men, or 

1 " The Acts of the Apostles " was the first book printed in Russia 
(1564). 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 91 

which we saw with our own eyes": it is the first attempt 
at a genuine Russian history.^ Another contemporary 
of John IV, the priest Sylvester, has left an interesting 
document, a code of domestic morality, called "the 
House-builder " — humble in its didactic theorizings, des- 
potic in its practical prescriptions. The Metropolitan 
Makarius composed his great work, "The Lives of the 
Saints," a book of a peculiar poetical charm, which even 
to-day remains a favourite of the people. An epic song 
was inspired by the battle of Koulikovo (" Zadon- 
schina"), the first victory gained over the Tartar, but 
in spite of an evident imitation of " The Word about 
Igor's Fights " it is of little literary value. 

So scarce are the products of the intellectual culture 
of that time ; but we must keep in mind that the period 
we speak of begins with the Tartar subjugation. Many 
historians say : " Russia did not lose much by the Tar- 
tar yoke ; if there had been any culture before, it would 
have survived ; if we do not see any at the end of the 
period, it is the best proof that there had been none 
before ; after all, Russia was not turned back from civil- 
ization, she only stopped, she remained at the same 
point." They do not realize how deeply they sin 
against history in saying so. There are, there can be, 
no standstills in history : by the fact that a nation does 
not advance, she retrogrades; for the rest of the world 
goes on and does not wait for her. Only think with 
what gigantic paces human genius was advancing on 
its way, and you will realize how far behind our poor 
country was left. 

^ It begins with John the Terrible's childhood, and goes as far as 1578. 
Its main idea is that the terrible Tsar was good as long as he was well sur- 
rounded. 



92 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

We have reached the year 1613 in our narration. 
What was this time in the rest of the world ? What 
were the names that shone on the other side of 
the frontier ? In England, Shakespeare and Bacon ; 

^ in France, Rabelais and Montaigne ; Descartes was 
already born ; in Spain, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, 
Calderon de la Barca ; in Italy, Galileo and that innu- 
merable Pleiad of Italian painters, writers, sculptors, 
and scientists of every kind, each of whom makes the 
glory of their own country and the pride of the whole 
world. It was the time when ever young antiquity, in 
the immaculate beauty of her Grecian serenity, had lately 
arisen from the Italian soil, and, with a new unknown 

f expression in her eyes, crowned with mystic flowers of 
Christian poetry, had dispersed the gloom of the Middle 
Ages and lit the sun of the " Renaissance." It was the 
time when the intrepid prows of European vessels, cleav- 
ing the waves of distant oceans, plunged into new hori- 
zons and landed at the shores of virgin continents. 
Russia remained in the background during all that 
movement. Everybody is not called at the same time 
to co-operate in the great work of universal advance- 
ment. But if everybody has not helped to dig the well, 
to everybody is given the right of drinking the water. 
Russia had to conquer even that right. We are now 
about to examine the conditions which made of that 
conquest the most arduous of all her conquests. 



LECTURE IV 

(1613-1725) 

The first Romanovs. Characteristic of the period. The 
Patriarch Nikon and the "revision of the texts." Awaken- 
ing of critical spirit. Foreign infiltration and inner reaction. 
The Court. The precursors. 

Peter the Great, His historical figure. Peter's campaigns. 
The reform, its methods, its spirit. Posterity and contempora- 
ries. Tsarevich Alexis. Peter's death. Division of national 
opinion. Intestine polemics on foreign soil. 



LECTURE IV 

(1613-1725) 

As to Peter, — know ye all, that life to him is of no value so long 
as Russia lives in glory and prosperity. — From the order of 

THE DAY GIVEN TO THE ARMY BEFORE THE BATTLE OF POLTAVA. 

THERE are in history individualities whose 
names shine with such splendour that they not 
only throw their light on subsequent periods, 
but seem to lighten the previous epochs ; events imme- 
diately preceding their appearance lose that independent 
value which all historical events have when considered 
as results of the past, and acquire in the eyes of posterity 
the secondary value of auxiliary facts, as if history were 
endowed with prescience : events seem not so much to 
undergo the impulsion of the past as to obey the attrac- 
tion of the future. One of these individualities is Peter 
the Great. We will therefore consider the times of the 
first sovereigns of the newly elected dynasty inasmuch 
as they constitute a preparatory epoch. 

On the 2 1 St of February, 161 3, the interregnum is put 
an end to by the election of Michael Romanov.^ The 
country got out of the " times of confusion," but the effort 
it required to deliver itself from the invasion of for- 
eigners and from the gangs of robbers had exhausted 

1 On this event : Ervin Bauer, " Die Wahl Michael Feodorovich 
Romanov's zum Tsaren von Russland," in " Historische Zeitschrift." Neue 
Folge, Band XX. 

95 



96 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

all its forces ; towns were destroyed, villages burnt, 
fields devastated ; in many places houses were encum- 
bered with corpses. The people worn out, exasperated, 
were driven to the pitch of desperation. The reigns of 
Michael and his son Alexis were troubled with continuous 
riots, and it required a good deal of wisdom and care on 
the part of the two first rulers of the new dynasty to heal 
the nation's wounds under such conditions. Exterior 
affairs no more than interior allowed the country to take 
rest. The former Princedom of Moscow now extended to 
the east as far as the Chinese frontier, while on the west 
the three capital questions of its political life — the 
conquest of the Baltic shores, the incorporation of the 
old Russian Provinces annexed by Poland (the so-called 
Little Russian question), and the expulsion of the Tartar 
from the Crimea — involved her in a series of campaigns 
against Sweden, Poland, and Turkey.^ In putting to- 
gether the duration of these campaigns led by Michael 
and Alexis, we have in the seventy years of their reigns 
thirty years of war. And with all that, so conscientious 
was the work of these first Romanovs, so sincere their 
efforts to appease the country, and so charming their 
personal character, that the reigns of Michael, Alexis, 



1 In these times we must look for the beginning of the " Eastern 
Question." The first who formulated the opinion according to which 
Russia's historical mission was to deliver the southwestern Slavonians 
from the Turkish dominion, was a certain Krijanich, a Servian who had 
settled in Moscow under Tsar Alexis. (See : Louis Leger, " Nouvelles 
Etudes Slaves." lereserie. Paris, 1880. On the Eastern Question : A. Le- 
roy-Beaulieu, " Politique russe et panslavisme," in " Revue des Deux 
Mondes," 13th December, 1876.) The last important event in connection 
with the Eastern Question is the Turkish-Russian War of 1877-1878, for 
the emancipation of Bulgaria. (F. V. Greene, " Russian Army and its 
Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-1878." New York, 1S79.) 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 97 

and his eldest son Theodor leave in history the impression 
of what they wished them to be, — an impression of 
peace, of rest, of benevolence. Foreign contemporaries 
of Alexis could not conceive how a sovereign invested 
with absolute power could never have attacked any 
man's life or property or honour. Though somewhat 
too optimistic, this statement of the German ambassa- 
dor ^ renders well the historical colouring of that period 
of calm contained between the turbulent vicissitudes of 
the interregnum, and the fermentation brought about by 
the violence of Peter's reform. 

In such an atmosphere arose those intellectual currents 
which were the precursors of the great reformatory 
wave ; from this time dates the awakening of the critical 
spirit which made it possible for the innovations to take 
root in people's minds. Let us examine the soil on 
which this spirit of criticism broke out, and the points 
at which it was directed. 

As we have already seen, the clergy and the monaster- 
ies were the depositories of that narrow Byzantine cult- 
ure which, still narrowed by difficulties of translating, was 
the only intellectual food of the whole precedent period. 
It is from the same ecclesiastical soil the critical move- 
ment started; though it assumed much greater propor- 
tions than its initiators intended to give it, though the 
promoters themselves were afraid of the infinity of the 
widening direction the critical spirit seemed to inaugurate, 
it is nevertheless in the Church and the passionate ec- 
clesiastical debates of this time, that we must look for the 
first germs of the intellectual and social reform. The 

1 Mayerberg, " Iter in Moscoviam." French translation, " Relation 
d'un voyage en Moscovie," Leyden, 1688, also in the " Bibliographic Russe 
et Polonaise." I and II. 
H 



98 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

authoritative and ambitious figure of Patriarch Nikon 
becomes the central point of this movement, and the 
revision of the ecclesiastical books, the question which 
starts the fermentation. 

One day in the Cathedral of the Assumption, — the 
largest and finest among the numerous churches of the 
Kremlin, the one where, since John IV, all tsars and later 
all emperors of Russia were crowned, — Tsar Alexis, 
surrounded by his court and an innumerable crowd 
of people, threw himself at the feet of the Metropoli- 
tan Nikon, imploring him not to refuse the acceptance 
of the patriarchal throne to which he had been elected 
by the council.^ This was in 1642. Six years later, in 
the Cathedral of the Assumption, the Patriarch Nikon, 
after having celebrated mass, at which mass the Tsar 
did not assist, unburdening himself of the ensigns 
of his rank, declared to the assisting people that he 
was no longer their patriarch, and amidst the tears and 
lamentations of the crowd walked out of the cathedral 
and left for a suburban convent. What had occurred 
in that six years' interval .'' The civil and the ecclesias- 
tic powers had come to a conflict ; the Tsar grew tired 
of the increasing pretensions of the patriarch who, 
availing himself of many years of friendship and intel- 
lectual communion, by and by assumed the rank of 
a second tsar, and called himself " Lord Great Sover- 
eign." We will not follow the events of this dramatic 
episode of our ecclesiastical history ; Nikon, summoned 

1 The metropolitan of Moscow was enthroned patriarch by Jeremiah, 
patriarch of Constantinople under Theodor, John the Terrible's son, in 
1589. (See Adelung, "Der griechische Patriarch Jeremias in Moskwa, 
1589." St. Petersburg, 1840.) The patriarchate of Russia was suppressed 
and the synod substituted, by Peter the Great, in 1721. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 99 



before an ecclesiastical council composed of representa- 
tives of the Russian clergy, presided over by the patri- 
archs of Alexandria and Antioch,^ was declared wrong 
in his behaviour, and forced to resign for good ; he 
spent the rest of his days in a distant convent.^ The 
fact interesting to us is that among those measures taken 
by him, which, in spite of his condemnation, were ac- 
cepted and approved of by the council, was the revi- 
sion he had made of the ecclesiastical books. 

Thanks to the continuous process of copying, mis- 
takes and incorrectnesses could not help stealing into the 
texts. So long as they were only manuscripts, the re- 
sponsibility could always be charged to the copyist, but 
when they began to be printed by the ecclesiastical press, 
the errors acquired a sort of consecration. For a long 
time past learned monks from Greece and from Kiev, 
where traditions were observed, had been pointing out the 
errors to the Moscovite clergy. Nikon was one of the 
first to take real notice of the fact, and put hand to a 
thorough revision of the books according to the Greek 
texts. The necessity was urgent, yet in some way it was 
already too late. A great part of the people would 
not accept the rectifications ; rejecting the Nikon texts, 
they clung to the ancient ones and produced that which 
is known as the " Great Schism" of the Russian Church. 

We must keep in mind the almost dogmatic signifi- 
cance given to the letter in those times to understand the 
meaning of Nikon's reform and of its official acknow- 

1 The patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem had been asked by 
the Tsar, but were detained by their diocesan affairs. 

2 On Nikon : W. Palmer, " The Patriarch and the Tsar." 6 vols. 
1871-1876. Interesting details of every-day life: A. Brueckner, "Des 
Patriarchen Nikon Ausgabebuch " in " Baltische Monatsschrift," iv, 3, 4. 



loo PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

ledgment : it was the admission of criticism in the 
domain of those questions which till then were re- 
garded as inaccessible to reason. And in fact reason 
awakens, and the critical spirit breaks out. Several 
schools are founded in different convents where Greek 
^ Byzantinism enters into competition with Latin scholasti- 
cism. A plan of an academy is approved by Alexis' 
son, Theodor, and carried out (1633) under the regency 
of his sister Sophia, who ruled during the minority of 
Peter the Great. 

The necessity of learning imposes itself with more and 
more urgency on the minds of men. That self-belief 
which characterizes all nations who have lived for a long 
time without intercourse with others is shaken, and self- 
criticism raises its voice. When the Church herself 
gives the example of self-revision, how can other sides 
of life remain in a continuous " status quo " .-* " What is 
impossible in Russia ! " exclaims a contemporary ; " any- 
thing can be obtained in a monarchy. Is the merchant 
illiterate .'' Close his shop and keep it so until he learns 
reading and writing." The increasing foreign infiltra- 
tion becomes an important factor in this movement. 
The famous " German Suburb " in Moscow, which soon 
is going to become the favourite resort of Tsar Alexis' 
son, the young Prince Peter, rapidly grows and be- 
comes a sort of living cyclopaedia of foreign "craft" 
and "skill" which dazzles and enchants.^ Foreign 
people, foreign habits, foreign books, become points of 
comparison, and, for many, examples for imitation. Slight 
facts open new horizons of foreign superiority and dis- 

1 On the German Suburb and in general on foreigners in Russia : A. 
Brueckner, "Die Europaisirung Russland's." Gotha, 1888, and "Cultur- 
historische Studien," ii, Riga, 1878. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



cjose the abysses of our ignorance. A dignitary of the 
Church, who carries on a Latin correspondence with a 
foreign merchant staying at Archangel, writes to thanlc 
him for some Latin books : ^ he considers them " Opera 
preciosissima ... in quibus quot paginas revolvo, tot 
fructus colHgo " ; and then in a touching access of very 
excusable envy he adds : " Laudabiles sunt hae regio- 
nes, quae tales libros vel potius talium librorum aucto- 
res doctissimos et eruditissimos producunt."^ But all 
the clergy were not like him, and a violent reaction 
breaks out in the sermons of the time against the dan- 
gers of a blind imitation. Nikon himself, at the begin- 
ning of this movement, felt alarmed at the rapidity 
with which innovations invaded domestic life. With 
Savonarolian fanaticism he burns pictures, destroys an 
organ, cuts to pieces the liveries one of the boyars 
has made for his servants. If such were Nikon's feel- 
ings, you may imagine what were the opinions of those 
who clung to the ancient texts because they considered 
Nikon too advanced. In a collection of spiritual pre- 
cepts of the time, we read the following terrifying sen- 
tences : " Abominable before God is he who likes 
geometry . . . prefer simplicity to wisdom ; that which 
is higher than you never seek to explore, that which is 
deeper than you never seek to fathom, but that learn- 
ing which comes from God and is given to you ready 
made, that keep for yourself." 

1 Dimitry, metropolitan of Rostoff (d. 1709) to Isaac Van der Burg. 
He was one of the most learned men among the Russians of the time, 
and author of many valuable works. In his library, it is said, for the first 
time the works of Bacon appeared in Russia. 

2 " Most precious works ... in which on every page I turn I find some 
new fruit. . . . Laudable those countries which produce such books or 
rather the most able and most learned authors of such books." 



I02 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

You see the violence of opinions on either side.^ Ttie 
struggle began ; Russia's future depended upon the 
issue of the conflict. Which would be the stronger of 
the two ; which ideas would attain pre-eminence ; which 
would triumph, enlightenment or obscurantism ? The 
latter held possession of the majority of the country, 
the former of a slight minority composed of the upper 
class of Moscow. But the court was with the minority, 
Tsar Alexis furthered the new movement, enlightenment 
was officially favoured, and Russia's future was secured. 

The court of Moscow presented an interesting sight at 
this time. The Kremlin attained the full development 
of its architectural beauty ; the typical harmony of its 
configuration was not yet destroyed by those modern 
superstructures which spoil it in our days ; and with the 
gable roofs of its palaces painted in checlcs, with the 
towers of its white wall overlooking the river, with 
the golden cupolas of its churches and the medley 
of its belfries rising in the air and glittering in the 
sunshine, it presented already in those times that same 
enchanting spectacle which a hundred and fifty years 
later would stop Napoleon in his march, and inter- 
rupt the sombre current of his thought with a moment 
of aesthetical delight. Inside this Kremlin, in this cita- 
del of palaces and churches, where the hours of the day 
were marked by ecclesiastical services, where the sacer- 
dotal vestments and the royal mantles intermingled in 

^ A vigorous protest against Moscovian ignorance is presented by the 
work of G. Kotoshikin, " On Russia under Alexis Mikailovich." Em- 
ployed in the " Polish Department " of foreign affairs he was versed in all 
details of contemporary administration. In the sixties he emigrated to 
Sweden, and there he wrote his work (1666- 1667). It was known by a 
Swedish translation (1682) until 1838, when Professor Solovieff discov- 
ered the original manuscript at the University of Upsala. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 103 

the gorgeousness of alternating ritual and ceremonial, 
strange things were taking place in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century. The Tsar, his family, his 
court, seemed given over to a new kind of amusement : ' 
in the private apartments of the palace, in presence of 
his Majesty, a German theatrical company gave per- r- 
formances under the direction of Godfried Gregory, the 
Lutheran clergyman of the German Suburb. 

In 1672, three days after the birth of his son Peter, 
Tsar Alexis ordered Gregory to exhibit a comedy. The 
first piece given was about Esther and Ahasuerus ; then 
came "Judith," "Joseph," "Adam and Eve," etc.; at 
first in German, but then Russian boys were intrusted 
to Pastor Gregory to be taught the art of acting ; 
translations were made into • Russian, and finally the 
first original comedy was written by Simeon of Po-^ 
lotsk. This learned monk was teacher of the Tsar's 
children, and, at the same time, something like the 
poet laureate of the court. His comedy, entitled " The 
Prodigal Son," has been preserved in a very inter- 
esting illustrated edition of the time. The author of 
" The Prodigal Son " took an important part in this 
literary passion which invaded the court; his lessons 
were so interesting, so clever, — sometimes in verse 
to make it easier for the memory, — that the Tsar's 
daughter for the first time in history since the Tartar 
yoke, leaves her maiden apartments. Princess Sophia 
shares the benefits of Simeon's lessons with her eldest 
brother, Theodor. Later she becomes herself a writer : 
she composes a tragedy on Esther ; she is said to have 
made attempts at translating Moliere, — at any rate 
Moliere's "Physician in spite of himself" was repre- 
sented in her private apartments. 



I04 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

A man who became a prominent figure during Princess 
Sophia's regency took part in this performance ; this 
was Prince Galitzin, of whom the PoHsh envoy, De la 
Neuville,^ says that he cherished vast plans of reform ; 
he was of a refined intelligence ; and in his mind the 
necessity of emancipating the peasants, who had been 
bound to the soil in the last years of the preceding cen- 
tury, already presented itself as an inevitable condition 
of national prosperity. He can be taken as the pre- 
cursory specimen of that Russian aristocracy which a 
century later would swarm round the throne of Cath- 
erine the Great — refined, intellectual, but idealistic and 
with no deep roots in practical life. 

Another interesting personality is Ordyn Naschokin, 
a man widely different from Prince Galitzin, and though 
of great universality in his interests, very practical in 
action ; he was the first Russian diplomatist. Involved 
in the hardest difficulties of the Little Russian and the 
Baltic questions, he gained the esteem of the Swedish 
and Polish diplomatists with whom he had to deal. A 
passionate champion of foreign ideas, he was a harsh 
critic of Moscovite customs, and made numerous enemies 
in society by his habit of sacrificing personal considera- 
tions to affairs. He was an ardent advocate of a Russian 
sea and a Russian fleet.^ After his type will be shaped 
the helpers of Peter the Great. We must mention also 
Tsar Alexis' intimate friend, Artamon Matveyev. His 

1 "Relation curieuse et nouvelle de la Moscovie." A la Haye, 1699. 
(English translation. London, 1699.) 

2 How intensely the necessity of a fleet was felt in those days we may 
see from the fact that Tsar Alexis asked the Due of Courland whether he 
would allow him to keep a few vessels in the port of Riga. The Due 
answered most sarcastically that the port of Archangel on the Polar Sea 
would better suit his purposes as being a Russian port. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 105 



house was the gathering-place of the intellectual elements 
of the time ; the " German Suburb " enjoyed his warmest 
sympathies, so that his enemies called him " Father of 
the Germans"; he had been the first promoter of that 
theatrical movement of which we spoke.^ In his house 
one day, Tsar Alexis met a handsome girl, who impressed 
him with her soft manners and beautiful black eyes ; 
this was the host's pupil, Nathaly Narishkin. The Tsar 
was a widower at that time ; she became his wife, and 
on the 30th of May, 1672, brought into the world a son 
who was called Peter. 

Such was the atmosphere in which grew and lived 
the children of Tsar Alexis. Mild and noble Theodor, 
who ruled during six years after his father ; the ener- 
getic and ambitious Sophia, who succeeded, after Theo- 
dor's death in 1682, in being proclaimed regent in the 
name of her two brothers ; the delicate and feeble-minded 
John, and Theodor's god-child little Peter with his black 
curly hair.^ 

I have tried to picture, as briefly as possible, this 
curious epoch of gradual intellectual emancipation, — 
emancipation from religious fanaticism, from national 
exclusiveness, from a servile obedience to the customs 
of the forefathers ; an interesting epoch which would 

1 His son Andrew was sent by Peter the Great as ambassador extraor- 
dinary to Queen Anne of England, in 1706. On the night of the 21st 
of July, 1708, he was assaulted in the streets of London. He com- 
plained to the British government; the affair got before Parliament, which 
on this occasion passed the " Act for preserving the privileges of ambassa- 
dors and other public ministers of Foreign Princes and States," sanctioned 
by the Queen on the 21st of April, 1709. The act passed by the United 
States Congress on the 30th of April, 1790, is but a repetition of the one 
called forth by Matveyev's " troublesome affair." 

2 Peter the Great was Alexis' fourteenth child; only the above men- 
tioned played a part in history. 



io6 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

have counted in history as marking a step of national 
evolution had it not been put into the shade by the im- 
petuous revolution of the subsequent period. It is the 
fashion now among those who pretend to depreciate 
Peter the Great, to insist upon this preparatory period ; 
as they cannot contest the importance of his activity, 
they attack him from the rear, and declare that the whole 
reform was ready marked out under his predecessors, 
thus granting him the merit of a conscientious exec- 
utor, but refusing all glory of creation. We have seen 
enough of the preparatory period to form an idea of 
what it was, and of what Peter had to do : it gave exam- 
ples of intellectual awakening, scattered in different 
domains of science, craft, and trade, unconscious of 
their reciprocal dependence, and incapable of practical 
transfusion from individual into national life. Peter had 
to fan these individual sparks into a universal flame ; to 
invigorate the scattered instances with the conscious- 
ness of collectivity; to vivify them by practically apply- 
ing them to the necessities of national life, and to multi- 
ply them by the irradiating power of his own example. 
If anyone should ask us " How did he do it ? " — extrav- 
agant as it may seem — we should answer with one word, 
" He lived." Peter the Great lived, and that was enough ; 
his life was the people's life ; his learning and labour 
were his nation's improvement ; his advance was the 
advance of the country ; his success was Russia's suc- 
cess.^ 

1 " Peter is the last and the greatest /lero. Only Christianity and prox- 
imity to our times have saved us (and this only to a certain extent) from 
a religious vv^orshipping of this demigod, and from mythological recitals 
about the exploits of this Hercules." (S. Solovieff, " History of Russia," 
vol. xiv.) " He is a hero in the antique sense : he is in modern times 
the only specimen of those gigantic natures of which we see so many in 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 107 

The lad, who became the friend and comrade of the 
artisans of the "German Suburb," soon left childhood 
behind him ; the military tournaments with the children 
of domestics and boyars are soon transformed ; that 
which was a plaything becomes a well-disciplined regi- 
ment ; the coachman's son Alexashka^ is the future 
serene highness. Prince Menshikov, minister of war, and 
the future field-marshal, Prince Galitzin, is in the ranks 
of that child-army. The little boats on the pond of the 
royal garden are too insignificant ; arsenals are ran- 
sacked ; an old boat is found among pieces of armour 
and household lumber, it is restored and launched on the 
water ; the pond is too small ; Peter leaves for the 
Pereiaslav lake and forgets everything on the waves of 
his favourite element ; now and then he sends a few hasty 
lines to his mother. " Your son Peter, abiding in labour, 
asks for your blessing and wishes to know of your 
health. As to us, thanks to your prayers, things are 
all right. The lake is free of ice, and all the vessels, 
except the big ship, are finished." ^ " Abiding in labour," 
— from seventeen till the day of his death, that self- 
applied epithet will never leave him. The 12th of 
September, 1689, all plays are put an end to ; the parti- 
sans of Princess Sophia and those of Peter's mother had 
come to a bloody "conflict; the Princess Regent, who 
cherished the hope of being crowned, is deposed and 
relegated to a convent; Peter and John remain the 

the misty distance of ages at the foundation and formation of human socie- 
ties." op. cit. vol. xviii. 

1 Diminutive of Alexander. 

2 " Letters and Papers of the Emperor Peter the Great." Edited by A. 
Bychkoff, director of the Imperial Public Library of St. Petersburg. Vol. i, 
No. 6. 



io8 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

masters of the place. But the invalid John does not 
count ; the reign of Peter the Great begins..^ 

It is impossible, in the limited time given to us, to 
represent the proportions and to follow up the. entire 
course of his reform ; in this case I must ask for your 
collaboration. We are now at the middle of our task ; 
if by what I have heretofore said I have succeeded in 
giving you some idea of what the country was, I will 
ask you not to lose memory of the picture : the differ- 
ence, I hope, will appear of itself, and the contrast will 
proclaim the importance of him who marks the division 
of the two epochs. Besides, even had I not succeeded 
in my efforts, the mere value of those things I shall 
have to speak of will be eloquent enough of itself. I 
have had little to say of literature, of science, of art, of 
social life, of ramification of intellectual currents, of frac- 
tions of national self-consciousness ; henceforth I shall 
have to speak of all these, and were I endowed with 
encyclopaedic universality, I should have to speak of 
mining, engineering, trade, manufactures, etc. I will 
not undertake the hard task of examining all the springs 
and levers of the reforms, nevertheless a few remarks 
on its material side are necessary. 

1 On Peter the Great : A. Brueckner, " Peter der Grosse." Berlin, 1883. 
Schuyler, " Peter the Great." 2 vols. London, 1884. C. Sadler, " Peter 
der Grosse als Mensch und Regent." St. Petersburg, 1872. On the 
epoch : A. Brueckner, " Iwan Possoschkow. Ideen und Zustande in 
Russland zur Zeit Peter's des Grossen." Leipzig, 1878. Bantysh-Ka- 
mensky, "Age of Peter the Great." London, 1851. The first really 
scientific work in Russian on Peter the Great is Oustrialov's monumental 
"History of Peter the Great's Reign." 5 vols. St.. Petersburg, 1858- 
1S63. Valuable documents in: "Monuments historiques relatifs au regne 
d'Alexis Michaelovitch, Feodor III et Pierre le Grand, Czars de Russie, 
extraits des archives du Vatican et de Naples." Par A. Theiner. Rome, 
Imprimerie du Vatican, 1859. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 109 

That which makes Peter's reform so difficult to grasp, 
is just that simultaneousness of which we spoke awhile 
ago ; it seems to lack system and plan ; everything is put 
in movement at the same time. One main idea can 
indeed be traced in every single act of his ; it is the 
increase of the country's wealth ; all which does not 
directly aim at that is either a means or a necessary 
consequence. One of these means was war ; it was an 
expensive one, but the compensations expected were 
greater than the sacrifices. The campaigns of Peter the 
Great have a character of their own. It is never for a 
diplomatic reason or by voracity for adjacent territory 
that they are undertaken, — you always feel the practical 
aim at the end. They are not vast, the territories for 
which he fights, but they are the port of Azov, as en- 
trance to the Black Sea,i Derbent on the Caspian, and 
the shores of the Baltic. And the process of war itself, 
how different it appears ! It quite loses the character of 
national calamity, of disaster. Those healthy, vigorous 
regiments in newly adopted foreign uniforms, taught by 
foreign under-officers, but led by Russian generals, seem 
to start for a match ; a defeat is never a non-success, — 
it is another lesson learnt, and the profit of the lesson 
never fails to materialize. 

The first campaign against Azov was gained by the 
Turks. With the energy of a man knowing where his 
fault lies and how to repair it, Peter rushes into the for- 
ests of Varonesh ; twenty-six thousand carpenters are set 
on foot ; the Tsar presides over the work ; a fleet is being 
built. " According to God's commandment given to our 
forefather Adam," he writes, "in the sweat of our brow, 

1 He had to cede it back to Turkey after an unsuccessful campaign in 
1711. 



no PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

we eat our bread." Between November and the next 
spring the fleet is constructed ; the vessels sent down the 
Don appear before Azov, the port is taken — the lesson 
had been of profit. 

The first conflict with Charles XII of Sweden, which 
opens the famous " Northern War," brings the dreadful 
defeat of Narva with the loss of the whole artillery — 
another lesson. Everything is set on foot this time : men, 
women, monks, priests, work by order of the Tsar for 
the equipment and arming of the soldiers ; new foun- 
dries work day and night, church-bells are melted down ; 
in sixteen months' time three hundred guns are ready. 
The future field-marshal Sheremetiev takes the com- 
mand and marches from success to success ; Swedish 
banners sent to Moscow wave in the Kremlin. Peter 
leaves for the North; with his new artillery, he takes a 
fortress on the Neva, which, with that rage for German 
names which at that time invades the national vocabu- 
lary, he calls Schlusselburg ; with sixty cutters he rows 
down the Neva to explore the mouth of the river. Sud- 
denly three Swedish men-of-war appear ; there is a 
fight, the three vessels are captured, the first naval 
battle is gained, the dream of the forefathers is fulfilled ; 
that country, which, during centuries, had been longing 
for water, at last quenches her continental thirst. 

On the 1 6th of May Peter goes ashore ; a few wooden 
houses are rapidly put together, he orders it to be a town, 
a seaport ; he calls it St. Petersburg and leaves for the 
South ; the Turkish frontier required his presence. But 
the great struggle with Sweden is not finished ; another 
terrible but inevitable conflict had to come ; it came on 
the 27th of June, 1709, near Poltava; the "Northern 
War" had its culminating point in the southwest. The 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



armies met at four in the morning ; at eleven the Swedes 
were crushed and put to flight; Charles XII, the Swed- 
ish hero, wounded and carried on a litter, just escaped 
captivity. When, a hundred years later, Napoleon I, 
with his arrogant belief in his star, shall ask the envoy 
of Alexander I, " What is the shortest way to get 
to Moscow ? " — Balashov will answer with courtesy, </ 
"There are several ways. Your Majesty, — Charles 
XII chose the way of Poltava." From that day the 
curtain rises before Europe, and Russia enters the 
scene of universal history. But Peter takes the matter 
from another side : " The opposing army," he writes, 
" has met the fate of Phaeton. To-day, definitely, 
a stone has been laid in St. Petersburg's founda- 
tion with the help of God." Always the practical end.^ 
Those who may take the trouble of studying Peter 
the Great's campaigns will see how little credit is de- 
served by that famous document known as the " Will of 
Peter the Great," in which he is represented as entreat- 
ing his successors never to abandon the idea of conquer- 
ing the world. This document, which is said by some 
critics to have been forged by order of Napoleon, when 
he raised all Europe against Russia,^ is just the contrary 
of the reformer's views on the sense of war. But " habent 
sua fata libelli " — people who know nothing about 

1 Voltaire in his " History of Peter the Great," which has no scientific 
value, has well struck the characteristic note of Peter's campaigns when 
he says that the battle of Poltava was the only one in universal history which ^ 
had not a destructive but a constructive significance. 

^ Bergholz, " Napoleon I, auteur du testament de Pierre le Grand." 
Brussels, 1863. Others attribute to Napoleon only the publishing and 
spreading of the document. Some think the chevalier D'Eon, secret agent 
of Louis XV, at the court of the Empress Elizabeth to be its author. (CJn 
this curious personage : Gaillardet, " Memoire sur la chevaliere d'Eon.") 



112 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Russian history know the "Will of Peter the Great," 
and it was the first thing I was asked about when I 
reached Japan ; English political pamphlets had taken 
the trouble of spreading it in the Empire of the Rising 
Sun. But then why that extension to the Pacific, people 
will ask ? We will answer that question by and by. 
Now Peter the Great is waiting, or rather he is not ; 
his walking pace in life was such that people had to 
run in order to keep, up with him ; his historical pace 
is as rapid and hasty. 

We have seen that his campaigns had the object 
of increasing the commercial contact of his people 
with other nations by extending its maritime frontiers.^ 
What an effort it must have required to carry out the 
plan, can be gathered from the following figures. On 
his accession Peter inherited from his predecessor an 
undisciplined and badly provided military force of about 
200,000 men; at his death, in 1725, he left a regular 
army of 200,000 and an irregular one of 100,000 men ; 
a fleet of 48 ships of the line and 800 small vessels, 
with a crew of 30,000 men and 9000 guns. And in 
spite of that the income which in 17 10 was three and 
one-half millions of roubles increased towards 1725 
to ten millions ; ^ before Peter the silver money was 
scarcely half a million, under Peter it reached over five 
millions.^ 

Thus war was a means of learning and enriching, 

^ In 1722, one hundred and sixteen ships arrived at St. Petersburg. In 
1724, two hundred and forty. 

2 The relation of the rouble of that time to the actual rouble (^- dollar) 
is of 9 to I. 

^ On Russian numismatics : Krug, " Zur Miinzenkunde Russlands." 
St Petersburg, 1805. A. Brueckner, "Das Kupfergeld (1656-1663) in 
Russland." Riga, 1863. Chandoir, " Monnaies Russes." 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 113 

but there were also immediate measures directed to the 
increase of national wealth. Peter not only sets his peo- 
ple in movement, he awakes the soil of the country, he 
shakes the slumbering earth ; iron, coal, naphtha, — all 
the natural resources, — are simultaneously grasped at in 
different parts of the country, "in order," says one of his 
decrees, " that God's blessing should not remain useless 
under the earth." A system of canals is undertaken 
b.y which the Neva is united to the Volga, the Baltic to 
the Caspian ; ^ two hundred and fifty manufactures are 
opened in a few years ; privileges of all kinds are granted 
in order to further collective commercial enterprises 
and to allure foreign dealers ; but in order that the 
foreign element should not overbalance in the scale 
of national economy, Russian students are constantly 
sent abroad ; Russians learn from foreigners, but they 
always keep their rank, they are pupils — never pas- 
sive organs. Russian soldiers were trained by German 
and Swedish under-officers ; but the battles in which the 
Swedes had been defeated were gained by Russian gen- 
erals. The lad who began his practical education in 
the German Suburb, dazzled by the superiority of Dutch 
and German carpenters, was an obedient pupil and an 
enraptured friend of the Swiss Lefort, the bankrupt 
merchant from Geneva who related such wonderful 
stories about foreign countries,^ and of the Dutch Tim- 
merman who was the first to show him the use of the 
astrolabe. 

1 On Peter's canalization-works : Wittenheim, " Ueber Russlands Was- 
serverbindungen." Mitau and Leipzig, 1842. Stuckenberg, " Beschrei- 
bung aller in Russischen Reiche gegrabenen oder projectierten Kanale." 
St. Petersburg, 184 1. 

- Dr. Moritz Posselt, " Der General und Admiral Franz Lefort. Sein 
Leben und seine Zeit." 2 B. Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1866. 
I 



114 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

But he goes abroad/ he becomes himself a hand- 
worker, he works in the docks of Saardam and Dept- 
ford, and when he returns home with the superiority 
of a monarch, wlio can with his own hands build a 
ship even to its slightest detail, his former friends, who 
had exercised an influence, so long as they held his 
young imagination, lose all importance. That sover- 
eign, who is so much accused by the so-called national 
party for his propensity to foreigners, leaves the state 
affairs at his death exclusively in Russian hands. Rus- 
sian students come back, and new schools are founded 
— always with the same practical purpose. Till this 
time schools had been a sort of appendix to monas- 
teries, the instruction given took no account of the 
variety of life's exigencies, it was the same for every- 
one and consisted, in addition to primitive notions of 
l^ writing and reading, in moral teaching aiming at the 
salvation of the soul. " But I want schools," exclaims 
Peter, impatiently, in a conversation with Patriarch Ha- 
drian, "schools that shall prepare people for all neces- 
sities, for civil and military service, including the arts 
of building, of medicine." In all elementary schools, 
under the supervision of the provincial clergy, arith- 
metic and geometry were introduced. Then came a 
^ sort of high schools, of the classical type, with Greek 
and Latin ; others with mathematics, German, or French. 
Moreover, special technical schools are founded : in Mos- 
cow, a medical school attached to the hospital ^ and a 

1 See Macaulay's opinion on Peter's journey, which he considers an 
epoch not only in Russian, or even in European, but in universal history. 
" History of England," chap, ix, p. 84. 

2 On medicine in Russia before the nineteenth century : Richter, " Ge- 
schichte der Medicin in Russland." Moscow, 1813-1817. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 115 

" School of Navigation " ^ ; in Petersburg, a naval acad- 
emy and an engineering school. 

The institution of the Senate in 171 1 is an important 
act which had been practically suggested by Peter's 
frequent absences ; it was the highest juridical instance, 
and it had supervision over all governmental functions. 

The so-called " Colleagues " (collegium) became some- 
thing like our ministries ; they were ten in number, and 
their institution is due to the suggestion of Leibnitz. In 
the following emphatic terms the famous German philos- 
opher explains their object : " As in a watch, one wheel 
puts in movement the other, just so in the great govern- 
mental mechanism, one ' collegium ' furthers the activity 
of another, and when all shall be in absolute proportion 
and perfect harmony, then the watch hand of wisdom 
will mark for the country hours of prosperity." Surely 
the author of the " Pre-established Harmony " knew 
what he meant, and was actuated by a touching con- 
fidence in the beneficency of his advice ; but no less 
touching is the confidence of that sovereign, a hand- 
worker in the practice of government, who expects to 
get help from the abstractions of speculative philoso- 
phy.2 The " collegia " concentrated the military, finan- 
cial, and other affairs concerning the general wealth 
of the country ; the towns were entrusted with local 
self-government, the land was divided into provinces 
or " governments " under the supervision of govern- 
ors. None of these institutions was subordinate to any 

1 One of the professors of that school was Magnitsky, the author of the 
"Arithmetic," the first Russian scientific manual (1703). 

2 See M. Posselt, " Peter der Grosse unci Leibnitz." Dorpat and Mos- 
cow, 1843. W. Guerrier, "Leibnitz in seinen Beziehungen zu Russland 
und Peter dem Grosse." St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1873. 



ii6 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

other, but all depended directly upon the Senate. Thus 
the administrative mechanism established by Peter the 
Great presented not an hierarchical scale, but a circle 
of institutions grouping themselves around the Senate, 
the plural representative of the individual monarchical 
power. 

The same practical interest which underlay every 
measure of his, determined the new basis on which 
the governmental taxes were established. Formerly 
the tithed land was taxed ; this had the ill result of 
leading the peasants to diminish the quantity of culti- 
vated soil. In the seventeenth century the land was 
relieved from tithes, and the tax transferred to the 
farms ; but then, in order to diminish their payments, 
as many peasants as possible gathered on the same 
farm. Peter the Great then introduced the capitation or 
so-called " sd^-tax " ; ^ every man had to pay for himself, 
and as the quantity of cultivated land had no influence 
on the proportion of the tax, the working force of the 
country was restored to the soil. 

The military reform was a most important act. 
Before Peter the Great, the nobility had to provide 
for the supply of military forces, somewhat as under 
the feudal system in Western Europe.^ Under Peter the 
Great the recruiting of the army becomes one of the func- 
tions of the government, and the nobility is put on the 
same level as other classes. Thus the intermediate period 
between the decay of feudalism and the introduction 
of a regular conscription, which in western countries 

1 Inanimate things in Russian are counted by "pieces," cattle by 
" heads," human beings by " souls." 

2 On ancient Russian military organization : Brix, " Geschichte der alten 
russischen Heereseinrichtungen." Berlin, 1867. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 117 

brought forth the irregularities of the so-called " violent 
enrolment," was unknown in Russia. Whereas in Aus- 
tria, as late as 18 18, a decree was issued forbidding 
churches to be used as traps for recruiting soldiers, ^ 
in Russia, thanks to Peter's reform, a regular system 
of conscription is established as early as the beginning 
of the eighteenth century .^ 

Such were in brief the measures, or rather such 
was the direction of those innumerable measures, taken 
by Peter the Great, which followed one another with 
confusing rapidity in the interior of the country, while 
the struggle for the seashores was going on on the 
frontiers. 

In 1 72 1 the last act of the Northern War was accom- 
plished ; it was the peace of Neistadt, by which the whole 
southern litoral of the Baltic from St. Petersburg down 
to the frontier of the Courland Duchy and a part of 
Finland were ceded to Russia. Peter the Great made 
his entry into the young city which was not yet the 
capital, but already the favourite of the sovereign, who 
called it "my paradise."^ The senators and ministers 
were waiting with impatience for his return. On the 
22d of October, in the Trinity Church, in presence of 
the Tsar, the text of the peace treaty was read to the 
people; after the reading. Chancellor Golovkin, at the 
head of the Senate, advanced, and in the name of 
the country begged the Tsar to accept the title of Em- 

1 Meinert, " Geschichte des Kriegswesens," quoted by A. Rediger. 
" Recruitment and Organization of Military Force." St. Petersburg, 1S92 
(Russian) . 

2 On military service in Russia : A. Leroy-Beaulieu in " Revue des Deux 
Mondes." June i, 1877. 

3 See Reimers, " Petersburg am Ende seines ersten Jahrhunderts." St. 
Petersburg, 1805. 



ii8 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

peror and " father of the fatherland, for having brought 
us from non-existence into existence." 

Such was the worker ; such the work.^ In our rapid 
sketch we have pictured them as they present themselves 
to posterity ; but how did contemporaries accept them ? 
We have seen that his immediate collaborators offered 
him the title of Emperor, and there is evidence to 
show that they had a keen insight into the significance 
of the events of contemporary history, and a great 
power of synthetical appreciation. But the rest ? The 
rest, the great majority, scarcely understood anything, 
and we must say that a great part of the fault lay in 
the methods with which the reform was carried out, and 
in some respects even in the reform itself. The fact 
that no well-established programme was set before the 
people, left the masses in the dark as to the aim of 
that which was going on under their eyes. The official 
gazette, published by Peter's order, registered facts, 
spoke of methods, but maintained no system, insisted 
upon no plan. This absence of well-understood aim 
deprived the Tsar's activity of all creative element. 
The people saw the destruction of the old order, but 
the new escaped their comprehension ; and things were 
too deeply rooted for their extraction not to hurt. The 
reform was practical, it aimed at material prosperity, — 
people could not help acknowledging that ; but it was too 
practical, it was nothing but practical ; and this was the 
inner germ of the hindrance to its wide acceptance. To 

1 On Peter's reform a contemporary book by the Brunswick resident at 
St. Petersburg: Weber, "Das veranderte Russland." Frankfort, 1721, 
English translation. London, 1723. On "contemporary" works about 
Russia: Hermann, " Zeitgenossische Berichte zur Geschichte Russlands." 
Leipzig, 1872. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 119 

make people accept a practical reform, it is not enough 
to show single examples of its application ; you must 
bring them to believe in the continuousness of its beneii- 
cent result and in the superiority of the principle in the 
name of which the reform is effected. But to make 
people believe whatever it may be, you must touch the , / 
spirit, the soul ; practical teaching alone is insufficient, 
— a moral educational element is needed, and this was 
absent in the didactic side of Peter the Great's activity. 
Nozv we believe in him, for we have acquired that moral 
education which he neglected for what he considered 
of more urgent importance ; and, enriched with that 
moral education, we 7iozv judge his work and approve 
of it, for we fill up its one-sidedness with what has been 
learned in later years ; but in his time only those few 
who were already educated, or who were endowed with 
extraordinary natural gifts, could understand him, and 
these did believe in him. The customs, opinions, creeds 
of the people were hurt at every innovation. The 
compulsory shaving, the so-called " German dress," ^ 
the new chronology beginning with Christ's birth in- 
stead of the creation of the world, the new year begin- 
ning in January instead of September, the compulsory 
participation of women in social gayeties,^ only educa- 
tion could reconcile people to such arbitrary changes, 
but education is a slow process. 

It is easy for us at the end of the nineteenth century 
to criticise what he was doing at the beginning of the 
eighteenth. What could Peter do in the short space of 

1 A. Brueckner, " Bilder aus der Russischen Vergangenheit." Leipzig, 
1887, 

2 On the customs of the time, a contemporary book : Bergholz's diary. 
German, in " Buesching's Magazin." XIX-XXII. 



I20 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

a man's life ? How was it possible to educate a grown-up 
generation ? Instead of losing time in educating them, 
he ordered them to act as if they were educated people. 
Some obeyed, others grumbled, and there were those 
who under simulated obedience concealed active opposi- 
tion. During his whole life Peter had to work under 
the constant threat of hostile elements, creeping out 
like reptiles from the clefts of the old edifice. And 
the darkest plot of reaction he found in his own family. 

Alexis, the son of his first wife Eudoxia Lopouhin, 
inherited from his mother a hatred for Peter's innova- 
tions. From the cell of the convent to which she had 
been relegated, she never ceased instigating him; but he 
needed no instigating. He confesses to the priest that 
he hates his father, and that often he happens to form 
the wish his father were dead. " God will forgive you," 
answers the priest; "we all wish the same thing." ^ 
Terrible, tragic — the whisper of this double confession 
overheard by history. One day the father learns all. 
Alexis flees ; he is pursued, but he escapes. In Italy, 
at Naples, in sight of the beautiful bay, he spends 
his last hour of liberty. He was hunted down and 
brought back. A supreme court was appointed to judge 
him ; he was condemned to death. " But the condemna- 
tion," adds ofificial history of the time, " could not be 
carried out, for on that very night the Tsarevitch died in 
his prison." 

Constantine the Great had executed his son Crispus; 
X Frederick the Great narrowly escaped being executed 
by his father. Family tragedies are the sombrest as- 
pects of human life, but they are like eclipses of the sun 
when they occur on the throne. Fortunately eclipses are 

^ S. Solovieff, "Public Lectures on Peter the Great" (Russian). 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



but for the moment. What would have happened had 
Tsarevitch Alexis succeeded Peter the Great? History- 
is mysterious and profound enough as it is, to prevent 
us from scrutinizing the abyss of probabilities. Great 
characters have great sufferings. What greater suffer- 
ing can we imagine for a man than to see the gigantic 
work of his life undermined and compromised by his 
own son ? What a refined combination of cruelty des- 
tiny displayed by embodying the gloom of ignorance, 
the resistance of prejudice, and the immovability of 
centuries in that one individual who, by the fact of his 
birth, could strike at the same time the heart of the 
sovereign and the heart of the father ! Peter suffered. 
Who is the man who can find in his own soul such a com- 
plexity of feelings as might measure t/iat suffering.? "I 
suffer," he writes, " and all for my fatherland. Hard is 
it to discern my innocence for him who does not know 
the whole of this affair. God sees the truth." Alexis 
left a wife, a German by birth. Princess Sophia of 
Blankenstein,! and an infant son, the future Peter H.^ 

Moral torment and physical exertion had undermined 
Peter's health. Full-blooded and vigorous, of a preter- 
natural strength, the great worker " abiding in labour " 
had to succumb to his own work. We have had a look 
into this work, and have seen that feverish activity, the 
mere recital of which is enough to take away one's 
breath. But we cannot form an idea of the whirlwind of 
Peter's life. He was always either leaving or returning ; 

1 See Guerrier, " Die Kronprincessin Scharlotte von Russland." Bonn, 

1875- 

2 See A. Brueckner, " Der Zarevitsch Alexis (1690-1719)." Heidelberg, 
1880. E. Hermann, "Peter der Grosse und der Zarevich Alexis." Leip- 
zig, 1880. V'e de Vogiie, " Le fils de Pierre le Grand." Paris, 1884. 



122 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

from Astrachan to Archangel, from the Baltic to the 
Caucasus, he was in all corners of his land, and his con- 
tinuous writing, his never-ceasing decrees, spreading 
through the country, and penetrating into the slightest 
details of practical life, made him omnipresent at every 
hour of his reign. His absences were perhaps more ter- 
rible than his presence, for they preceded his returns, 
and Heaven knows what a return of Peter the Great 
meant for his ministers and senators. When seeing him 
off on one of his campaigns the Senate asked him for his 
orders : " I told you not to sleep," he answered ; " and I re- 
peat, don't sleep, and once again, don't sleep." And all his 
life he was acting as if people were snoring round him; 
he was constantly wakening them and shaking them up. 
How did he manage to find time amidst this activity for 
verifying the translations of foreign technical manuals 
which were being made by his order .-^ He scolds a man 
for having translated too literally a German manual of for- 
tification : " Enough, if you grasp the sense," he writes; 
" but then put it into our language so that it may read as 
intelligibly as possible." During thirty-six years the 
whole country was on the go ; towards the end people 
began to feel tired; a sort of relaxation followed Peter's 
death; the workers took rest, yet the work stood firm, 
— it cannot perish, and this is perhaps the greatest 
test of the enormousness of his effort, that he made it 
impossible for the country to turn back. 

In November, 1725, Peter was yachting on the Neva, 
when he saw a boat which had just run aground; he 
hastened to save the people, spent the whole afternoon in 
the water, caught cold and did not recover. In the rush 
of his life he probably seldom thought of death ; on his 
dying bed he asked for pen and paper. He began to 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 123 

write, but the hand obeyed no more. Of all he wrote 
two words only could be made out : " give every- 
thing." ^ In his funeral oration, Theophan Prokopovich, 
archbishop of Novgorod,^ one of the most ardent adhe- 
rents of the reform and its untiring commentator in 
the pulpit,'^ said these memorable words : " Though he 
abandoned us through the destruction of his body, in 
departing, he left us his. spirit." 

Peter's wife, Martha Skavronsky, was the pupil of a 
Lithuanian clergyman ; first, housemaid of Prince Men- 
schikov, then the Tsar's wife, and after his death Em- 
press Catherine I. Simple, illiterate, but bright and 
lively, she suited Peter's character ; she kept up to his 
pace ; she followed him in his campaigns. She pre- 
sented him with two daughters : Elizabeth, who reigned 
from 1742 to 1762; and Anna, who married Charles 
Frederick, Prince of Holstein, and became mother of 
the future Peter III, husband of Catherine the Great. 

Few questions in history have been made the ob- 
ject of such contestation as the value of Peter the 
Great's reform. That double impression which it made 
on his contemporaries divides the opinion of posterity 
into two adverse currents ; still with the difference that 
among Peter's contemporaries only the ignorant raised 

1 Is it on these two words the authors of " Peter the Great's Will " have 
based that document, the whole sense of which means, " take everything "? 

2 He was Peter's helper in the reorganization of the church administra- 
tion. His biography by Bayer (?) in Scherer's "Nordische Nebenstun- 
den." Frankfort and Leipzig, 1776. A few details on Peter's views on 
church questions in "La Sorbonne et la Russie (1717-1747)." Paris, 
1882, by P. Pierling, S.J. 

^ " Theophan Prokopovich was the first representative of the new ten- 
dency — i\\e secularization of Russian thought.'''' P. Morozov, "Theophan 
Prokopovich as a Writer." St. Petersburg, 1888 (Russian). 



124 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

their voices against the reform, reviled the reformer, 
and even called him anti-Christ, whereas in our days 
cultured and learned people, serious investigators of 
history who live and work upon the benefits of the 
reform, turn their criticism against it. 

Peter the Great is accused of having turned his coun- 
try out of its natural course ; of having trampled upon 
the national spirit in order to impose the foreign culture 
of Western Europe. " He fell in love with Europe," says 
one of our writers ; ^ and he accuses the reformer of 
having cut to the root the tree of national life, and of 
having substituted an exotic plant unfitted for the soil. 
Peter is charged with having made his country the 
moral prey 'iQ^ foreign pre-eminence; with having 
"turned mto the muddy street of the German Suburb." 

"But the streets of old Moscow," observes one of the 
most conscientious investigators of national thought, 
"were not less muddy." ^ For his violence and cruelty 
people have compared him to John the Terrible ; forget- 
ting that John had shaped his reign according to his 
bad instincts, whereas Peter shaped his according to 
his talents, and gave way to instincts only because 
of the overpowering exuberance of his nature. His 
other personal defects, his carelessness of the dignity 
of his rank, his excesses in drinking, his orgies with 
common sailors, have been cited as so many points of* 
accusation. People really seem to forget of what times 

1 Danilevsky, "Russia and Europe." St. Petersburg, 1888 (Russian). 
As a counterpart we may mention the sceptical opinion according to which 
Peter's reform could have been imposed only upon a country which had 
no history and whose past presented a perfect " tabula rasa." (Chaadayev 
in his "Apology of an Insane Man," 1837.) 

2 A. N. Pypin, "Beginnings of a New Movement." "European Mes- 
senger," December, 1894 (Russian). 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 125 

they speak. Read the memoirs of the Margravine 
of Bayreuth, Frederick the Great's sister ; you will see 
what was going on at her father's court in Berlin in 
this same eighteenth century. And what did stout 
Frederick William of Brandenburg do to expiate his 
brutalities .'' But as he was a brute nobody mentions 
him, whereas a great man's faults are registered so as to 
form a regular indictment. I wish public opinion would 
always show itself as severe to vice as it often does 
when vice is combined with superior gifts. History bases 
its judgment on a different standard ; the violence of the 
sovereign, the tremendous strain of the nation's forces, 
and the chaotic torment of its spirit were the labour 
from which New Russia received life. 

The hardest accusations come from the Slavophiles ; 
those advocates of the union of the great Slavonian race 
as a counterpart to the Latin-German world, those cele- 
brators of the high spiritual gifts granted to " Holy 
Russia" in preference to the "rotten West," have 
proclaimed Peter the Great a betrayer of his people, of 
his country, and of their history.^ We have to shake 
off, it is said, this servile imitation of Western Europe. 
"At home, at home," ^ must be found the inspiration of 
Russian life.^ A Russian thinker cannot to-day hold 
by the opinion of Peter's greatness without being pushed 
into the corner of exclusiveness and accused of "West- 

^ C. Aksakov. 

^ J. Aksakov. Leading article in the^Russ," after the catastrophe of 
the 1st of March, 1881. (Murder of Alexander II.) 

^ In 1 861 the critic Appollon Grigoryev was congratulating his time 
upon the disappearance of the two adverse currents — the ivestern and the 
eastern (" Development of the National Idea in our Literature since 
Poushkin's Death "). Thirty-five years later we see how premature a simi- 
lar statement would be even to-day. 



126 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

ernism," which in its last expression becomes synony- 
mous with "anti-patriotism." ^ 

If I have insisted upon these two currents of Russian 
thought, it is not because I pretend to take advantage 
of the opportunity to contend with some of my country- 
men, but because I think that intestine polemics being 
an important factor among the indexes of national in- 
tellectual life, ought not to be neglected by foreign 
students. National self-consciousness is a great helper 
to the observer, more than that, it is perhaps the only 
secure source from which he can get those elements of 
knowledge necessary for forming an adequate opinion 
of a nation. You may read as many foreign books as 
you wish about a country, you will not know it before 
you have read its national books ; you will have learned 
many things aboiU the country ; you will scarcely know 
anything of the country. How often are we Russians 
asked by foreigners : " But why do you know other na- 
tions, and pretend that nobody knows you } " My vehe- 
ment compatriots generally exclaim at this : " Because 
you are more barbarous than we whom you accuse of 
barbarism." No, of two cultured gentlemen who discuss 
questions of universal history, neither is a barbarian ; 
the difference comes from another cause. If Russia 
knows other nations, it is because she has learnt their 
history from their books (which of course did not pre- 
vent us from writing our own after we had read theirs) ; 
whereas Russia's history is, till to-day, known to other 
countries from foreign books. We do not deny that 

1 On Slavophiles : Mackenzie Wallace, " Russia," vol. ii, chap. xxvi. 
A. Leroy-Beaulieu, " L'Empire des Tsars et les Russes." T. i, 1. iv, chap. i. 
Gerebtsoff, " Histoire de la Civilization en Russie." 2 vols. Paris, 1858. 
Doverin, " L'Esprit National sous Alexandre III. " 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 127 

observation is a chief means of learning, with which no - ^ 
science can dispense, yet history requires the collabora- \/ 
tion of two meeting currents; the judgment of the 
observer and the self -consciousness of him who is ob- ^ 
served. It depends upon the talent of the historian 
to combine them afterwards by the power of his criti- 
cism ; but if the element of national self-conscious- 
ness has not been taken in consideration, the work of 
the observer will be like a tourist's description : it may 
reveal many valuable qualities in the author, it will 
not unveil that of which he writes ; it will give an in- 
sight into his soul, — not into the soul of the subject.^ 
This is why we turn, with a particular interest, to the 
study of the next period. Our eighteenth century is 
nothing but the reform being made conscious. Before 
Peter the Great Russia was the object of national feel- 
ing, after him she becomes the object of national 
thought. 

1 Who will question the talent of Milton or Voltaire? Yet Russia's his- 
tory by the first ("A Brief History of Moscovia." London, 1682), and 
the " History of Peter the Great," by the latter, have no place in the 
bibliography of Russian history. 

The most voluminous history of the reign of Peter the Great accessible 
to English readers is that by Eugene. Schuyler, LL.D. 2 vols. Charles 
Scribner's Sons, 1884. See also, Rambaud's " History of Russia," edited 
by Nathan Haskell Dole. Boston, 18S0. Vol. II. 



/ /^ K 



LECTURE V 

(1725-1796) 

The eighteenth century, — significance of the date. Brief 
sketch from Peter I to Catherine II. The Academy of Sci- 
ence. Peter the Great's depositaries. Tatischev, Prince 
Kantemir. 

Lomonossov, — the scientist, the poet. Russian pseudo- 
classicism, — Soumarokov, Trediakofsky. Peter's reform 
under Empress EHzabeth. 

Accession of Catherine the Great. An autographical por- 
trait. French philosophy in Russia. Pseudo-classicism, — 
Derjavine. Satire, — the Empress, Von Wiezin. "The Un- 
der-aged." On the threshold of the century. 



IZO 



LECTURE V 

(1725-1796) 

Thought, once awakened, shall not again slumber. — Carlyle. 

WHEN a writer, speaking of intellectual or 
literary movements in Russia, mentions the 
eighteenth century, whatever extension he 
means to give to this term, the reader confines it to 
the reign of Catherine the Great. The splendour 
of this showy reign is not the only reason why the 
name of the Empress seems to absorb the century. 
Peter the Great, standing on the threshold of two cen- 
turies, belongs chronologically to both ; moreover he does 
not embody a period, he marks a historical moment; 
he is an era, not an epoch. Figures like his root deeper 
and rise higher than their own time, they are not what 
we call " representative," and we should commit a histori- 
cal error were we to apply to individuals who make 
their time the same measure as to those who represent 
it. In spite of all "precursory symptoms," in spite 
of his helpers and contemporary admirers, Peter the 
Great belongs to some superior region, outside the 
beaten track of chronological succession ; he is no in- 
dex of a century, just as an aerolite is no index of geo- 
logical formation. Thus in the memory of posterity he 
does not monopolize the eighteenth century, he vacates it 

131 



132 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

for his successors. Among these the name of Catherine 
the Great has to fear no competition. Her personal 
talents, the superior qualities of her helpers, the great 
scale on which she carried on her diplomatic inter- 
course, a series of successes obtained by the Russian 
arms by land and sea, — all this is enough to make her 
the central figure of the century. Her one reign, which 
lasted from 1762 till 1796, is as long as all the reigns of 
her predecessors since Peter the Great. 

Besides these historical or national reasons there 
are reasons of a higher, more universal order, why 
" Catherine's epoch" has become synonymous with the 
eighteenth century. The date in this case is taken 
not in its historical but in its philosophical signifi- 
cance, — the significance it has when applied to the 
intellectual movement of Western Europe, and more 
specially to France. The activity of Russian minds of 
this time was the immediate repercussion of French 
intelligence. Russian literature trod in the footprints 
of the writers who, though belonging to the preceding 
century, reigned in the eighteenth with indisputable 
authority : pseudo-classicism in literature and cyclopae- 
dism in philosophical thought are the marks of the time 
in Russia no less than in Western Europe. Indepen- 
dently of the course taken by historical events in different 
countries, a homogeneous intellectual spirit traverses 
the whole of Europe, East as well as West. Thus, 
in spite of the difference between the excesses of the 
great revolution on one side and the enforced obser- 
vation of the monarchical inviolability on the other, 
Europe's eighteenth century is Russia's eighteenth 
century, — it is the first coincidence of universal and 
Russian chronology. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 133 

In a few strokes let us retrace the epoch between 
Peter the Great's death in 1725 and the accession of 
Catherine the Great in 1762. After two years of the 
reign of Catherine I (Peter Fs wife) came three years 
of Peter II, son of the unfortunate Tsarevich Alexis. 
Then came from 1730 to 1740 Empress Anna, Duchess 
of Courland, niece of Peter the Great, and daughter of 
his invalid brother John. She left the throne to her 
niece. Duchess Anna of Brunswick,^ who ruled in the 
name of her son, the infant John VI. It was a sombre 
epoch ; conspiracies, favouritism, foreign intrigue, diplo- 
matic briberies, reduced the national history to a series of 
palace revolutions ; every change of reign was marked 
by executions or exiles of the previous favourites.^ It 
was a time of German inundation, when all kinds of 
foreign adventurers swarmed round the throne. The 
national party grouped itself round a woman who lived 
retired and never interfered in politics. Exhorted by 
her friends, among whom the French envoy De la 
Chetardie played a prominent part, she finally yields to 
their insistences and, when everything is said to be 
ready for the "coup d'etat," on one November night of 
1 741 she appears in the barracks of Peter the Great's 
favourite guards regiment. " Do you remember whose 
daughter I am.?" she exclaims. A loud "hurrah!" 
resounds, and the daughter of Peter the Great is es- 
corted to the palace. The Brunswick princess is dis- 

1 Married to Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick. Her mother Cathe- 
rine, married to Charles Leopold, Duke of Mecklenburg, was the eldest 
sister of Empress Anna. 

2 On the epoch : Winkelmann, " Russland und Ernst Johannes Byron," 
in "Baltische Monatsschrift." Band XV, Heft 5. Contemporary: Man- 
stein, " Memoire historique, politique et militaire sur la Russie." London, 
1772. 



134 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

possessed,^ the infant John VI is imprisoned, the Ger- 
man favourites are arrested, Empress EKzabeth ascends 
the throne. She sends to Germany for her nephew, 
the son of her sister Anna,^ — Prince Charles Peter 
UMch of Schleswig-Holstein, and this last male de- 
scendant of Peter the Great is declared the heir to the 
throne.^ He marries Princess Frederica of Anhalt 
Zerbst, who, eighteen years later, became Catherine the 
Great. 

Such is the historical succession of events. Let 
us consider now what constituted the intellectual life 
brought forth by the reform. 

The figure of Peter the Great lived powerful and 
undiminished in the minds of his contemporaries and 
of the next generation ; all who had to work amidst the 
political staggering of the period that followed his reign, 
found the necessary energy only in the impulse once 
given by his vigorous hand. In the year before his death 
Peter had issued a decree ordering "an academy to be 
instituted in which languages should be taught, as well 
as other sciences and precious arts, and books should be 
translated. For arts and sciences generally, two kinds 
of institutions are common : universities and academies ; 
yet in Russia that cannot be adopted which is common in 
other lands ; one must take into consideration the state 
of this country. The institution of an academy only is 

1 On the Brunswick family : A. Brueckner, " Die Familie Braunschweig 
in Russland im XVIII Jahrhunderte." St. Petersburg, 1867. 

2 Married to Charles Frederik, Duke of Holstein. 

^ He equally had rights to the throne of Sweden and to the throne of 
Russia. Through his mother he was the grandson of Peter the Great; 
through his father the grandson of Charles XII's sister. Thus Peter III 
combined in his person the two ' great adversaries of the eighteenth 
century. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 135 

insufficient, because it is incapable of spreading know- 
ledge rapidly among the people ; universities as well are 
useless so long as there are as yet no gymnasiums or 
colleges ; consequently an institution has to be founded 
consisting of the most learned men. These learned men 
must not only themselves study and advance science 
but must also teach young men publicly, and be- 
sides this keep a certain number of scholars attached 
to their persons, so that they may afterwards show the 
basis of all science to others." This scheme impresses 
us not so much by the extensiveness of its programme, 
as by the immensity of the vacuum it was expected to 
fill up. The Academy was opened at St. Petersburg 
under Catherine I. 

The first scientists were German. These official 
transplanters of Western culture do not interest us in 
our particular case; we are rather interested in those 
who adapted, than in those who transplanted, all the 
more because from the moment the national element 
grew up to the level of an independent scientific value, 
the foreign element showed itself hostile. Lomonossov, r 
the greatest name of the century, was persecuted all his 
life by his German colleagues. Besides, however hon- 
ourable and conscientious their work may have been in 
transplanting foreign science,^ they evidently could have 
no part in the implanting of Russian literature. In 
speaking of "implantation" we use the official term: 
"implantation of fine art" stood in the list of the 

1 Among these the most prominent were : Bayer, Mueller, and Schloe- 
zer. They rendered valuable services to Russian science in geology, 
geography, ethnology, philology, and history. We mentioned in due 
place Schloezer's work on Nestor and the annals. His autobiography: 
" Augustus Ludwig Schloezer's Oeffentliche- und Privatleben von ihm selbst 



V 



136 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Academy's duties.^ But, at the beginning, the cultiva- 
tion of the arts was subordinate to scientific activity, 
and the real meaning of this command of Peter the 
Great, as pointing to an independent development of 
literature as such, was not realized till later. The lit- 
erary essays of this first post-petrinian period bear the 
stamp of the practical character infused by the re- 
former into the minds of his helpers who became 
allies and agents of the reform. A group of intel- 
ligent men, different as to their social origin and edu- 
cation, became the delegates of him who was gone 
but "had left us his spirit." The house of Theo- 
phan Prokopovich, the archbishop of Novgorod whom 
we have already mentioned, was the place where foreign 
and national elements chiefly gathered and exchanged 
ideas. This prelate, who lived amidst a library of thirty 
thousand volumes, had a favourite adage which equally 
characterizes his tastes and his aspirations : " Uti boni 
villi non est qucerenda regio, sic nee boni viri religio et 
patriae "^ In the good harmony which could not but 
flourish under such principles, German professors, Rus- 
sian clergy, and workers for the enlightenment of Russia 
intermingled and discussed. 

Two men among these have inscribed their names, 
the one on the first page of Russian historical science, 
the other on the first page of Russian literature. The 
first was Tatischev, son of a land proprietor who had 
been employed by Peter the Great for geological and geo- 

geschrieben." Gottingen, 1802. His biography by his son. Leipzig, 
1828. 

^ A. N. Pypin, " Lomonossov and his Contemporaries." " European 
Messenger," March, 1895 (Russian). 

2 " As the place whence a good wine comes need not be asked after, so 
it is with a good man's religion and country." 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 137 

graphical explorations.^ He made valuable researches 
in the old chronicles, and wrote the first " Russian His- ^ 
tory." The ante-Mongolian period was an object of his 
minute study ; a list of annals and other documents 
up to the time of Theodor, John the Terrible's son, was 
compiled by him. Many historical documents of which 
the originals have perished are known to-day, thanks to 
Tatischev's quotations and commentaries. 

The other was Prince Kantemir (i 708-1 744), Molda- 
vian by birth, educated in Russia. First, ofificer in the 
guards, later, under Empress Anna, ambassador in Lon- 
don and Paris, he was a man of broad culture who knew 
Greek and Latin, and spoke four European and two East- 
ern languages, — Turkish and Persian. This zealous 
adherent of new ideas devoted his pen to their dissemina- 
tion and wrote the first Russian verses. They were satires 
directed against those who for different reasons resisted 
the reform ; or, misunderstanding its spirit, adopted a 
mere exterior imitation. Bigotry, materialism, junket- 
ing, and foppery are ridiculed and condemned.^ The 
Satires of Kantemir are an important document, but 
have no artistic value; the tone is didactic and heavy, 
the language uncouth ; though their subjects are thor- 
oughly Russian and contemporary, the author himself 
avows that he " steps in the footprints " of Boileau, 
Horace, Juvenal, and Persius. For a long time will 
Russian poets step in these footprints, and, in the high- 
heeled shoes of French rhetoric, stumble on the uneasy ^ 

1 The first geographical atlas and map of Russia was edited by Kirilov, 
Secretary of the Senate, in 1734. On old Russian maps: Dr. H. Michov, 
" Die altesten Karten von Russland, ein Beitrag zur historischen Geogra- 
phic." Hamburg, 1884. 

2 French translation with a biography. London, 1749 (2d ed. 1750). 



138 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

and slippery floor of pseudo-classicism ; but the day will 
come when they shall realize that poetry means life, and 
that the prairies and forests of their native land, and the 
pains and dreams of the national soul, are a worthier 
and richer source of inspiration than the mythologi- 
cal altars and powdered wigs of foreign tragedy. 
Literary forms were coming from abroad ; poetry had 
to gush out of the soil. Just so in nature — invigorat- 
ing light comes from above, active force comes from 
the earth. The earth had not yet spoken ; she did so 
in the next generation. 

One cold December night, in a village on the bank 
of the Northern Dwina, the door of a fisherman's hut 
was opened, a boy of sixteen came out, looked round, 
and with a few books under his arm hastened away on 
the highroad. This was in 1730: the name of the 
village was Holmogory; it lies not far from the port of 
Archangel ; the name of the boy was Michael Lomo-/ 
nossov ; the road led to Moscow. Why was he flying, 
and why to Moscow ? He did not know exactly, but 
he had read three books, — a Slavonian grammar, an 
arithmetic, and David's Psalms put into verse, — and 
he felt that beyond these books lay wider horizons. In 
the port of Archangel, where he used to accompany 
his father when about to go fishing in the Arctic Ocean, 
he had seen foreign ships and foreign people, and he 
felt that beyond the sea lay new horizons of countries, 
nations, languages, and that they could be reached. He 
had heard, during his childhood, of that emperor who had 
died in 1725, and had brought such changes among his 
people — new dress, new customs, even Russian ships, 
schools with wonderful learning ; and, abandoning his 
father's trade and freeing himself from the persecutions 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 139 

of a brutal step-mother, on this December night he fled to 
Moscow. He joined a caravan of merchants on the 
road, and in January reached that town where twenty- 
five years later he was to found a university. By an 
unexpected chance, he was admitted to the Slavo- 
Greco-Latin Academy ; a few years later he was sent to 
the Academy of St. Petersburg, and when, in 1736, the 
three best students were chosen to be sent abroad, 
Lomonossov was one of the three. 

Five years of study and all sorts of adventures carry 
him through a course of philosophy under the direction 
of Christian von Wolf in Marburg, a course of natural 
science in Freiburg under Henckel, a marriage with 
the daughter of a Marburg tailor, a conscription in the 
ranks of a German regiment, an incarceration in the 
fortress of Wesel, a successful escape, and finally a 
happy return. Back in St. Petersburg he becomes a 
member of the Academy, and is soon put at the head., 
of the physical and geographical department. From ' 
this time begins a life of labour and study which had, 
as its result, the foundation of Russian science, the eman- 
cipation of the Russian language from its heavy anti- 
quated forms, and the beginning of Russian poetry. 

Hard were these first years of work ; miserable the 
state of the Academy at that time. The best German 
professors had left, only mediocrity remained ; personal 
ambition and international hatred poisoned the atmos- 
phere of the institution where science was called to 
dwell. " The Academy without academicians, the chan- 
cery without members, the rules without authority, and, 
for the rest, a confusion up to this time irremediable." ^ 

1 French text quoted by A. Wassilchikov, " The Razoumovsky Family." 
4 vols. St. Petersburg, 1880- 1887 (Russian). This most entertaining 



I40 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

In such terms the secretary of the Academy describes 
the state of things, and under such circumstances had 
Lomonossov to get to work. But the moral energy 
which had had the force of delivering him from the 
darkness of his condition would not shrink before such 
obstacles. The accession of Empress Elizabeth, how- 
ever, the triumph of the national spirit, and the special 
personal benevolence of Peter the Great's daughter, by 
and by improved his situation. 

The work of Lomonossov was divided between 
natural science and literature; but these two words 
which indicate its direction appear insufficient and poor 
if applied to its results. Poushkin calls Lomonossov 
"our first University." What better characterization 
of his figure can we give ? He was in the domain of 
intellectual life what Peter the Great had been in the 
domain of practical life. That faculty of embodying 
and irradiating which constituted the chief power of 
the sovereign, is the characteristic of this brain that 
by itself represents the intellectual life of an epoch by 
multiplying itself in laboratories, manufactories, ethno- 
graphical and geographical researches, reports on the 
European scientific movement, historical and philologi- 
cal investigations,- rules of rhetoric and literary forms, 
odes, tragedies, and other poetical essays. Even yet 
this marvel of universality has hardly found due appre- 
ciation. One of his biographers says : " The works 
of Lomonossov were rather samples of works than 
works brought to completion." ^ If we take into con- 
book relating to the history of a family which owed its rise to one of its 
members having become the morganatic husband of the Empress Eliza- 
beth, has been translated into French by A. Brueckner, " Les Razoumov- 
sky." 6 vols. 

^ H. Lubimov, "Life and Works of Lomonossov." Moscow, 1872 
(Russian). 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 141 

sideration the all-comprehensiveness of his intellect, 
the chaotic state of people's thoughts at that time, 
and the complete ignorance of an abstract scientific 
world, we must acknowledge that just the above-men- 
tioned character of Lomonossov's activity determines 
his merit towards the subsequent development of sci- 
ence in his country. He was the first Russian to whom 
science was not technical skill but an independent 
world of knowledge and thought.^ We will not exam- 
ine his scientific activity, — it is enough to mention the 
words of the famous German mathematician Euler, 
who praised his works in physics and chemistry so highly 
as to express the wish that " all academies should be 
able to make discoveries such as those of Mr. Lomo- 
nossov," — and we pass over to his literary significance. 
" Oratores fiunt, poetae nascuntur," says the ancient 
proverb : "orators are formed, poets are born." Lomo- 
nossov was not born a poet, but he wanted to become 
one. And such was the power of his will, so fresh 
seemed that language which he had purified from barba- 
risms and emancipated from the authority of the eccle- 
siastical style, that not only did he become poet, but he 
was acknowledged tJie poet of the time. He gave the 
tone which Russian poetry kept for the rest of the 
century : the continuators of Lomonossov will amplify 
the harmony ; they will add no chords to his lyre. The 
style was altogether the pseudo-classical.^ As in the 

^ A. N. Pypin, "Lomonossov and his Contemporaries." "European 
Messenger," April, 1895 (Russian). 

2 " Pseudo-classicism," a term which seems to have been launched by 
the German critics (perhaps Schlegel), is used in Russia to designate 
the French literature of the seventeenth century, especially the French 
tragedy of Corneille, Racine, and their imitators. 



142 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

allegorical etchings and the medals of the time/ gods 
and goddesses of the Greek mythology further the suc- 
cesses of Russian armies, Boreas blows on the Baltic 
shores, nymphs bathe in the streams of the Neva, and 
all this mythological machinery is set in movement to 
extol the figure of Peter the Great. We cannot deny 
that a certain power makes itself felt under these bor- 
rowed vestments. A quite peculiar greatness emanates 
from those majestic odes where the descriptions of the 
aurora borealis, of the sunrise, of a tempest, denote the 
serenity of a superior spirit accustomed to a scientific 
enjoyment of God's creation. 

We said that Lomonossov wanted to become a poet ; 
this is perhaps not quite so. There was no selfish 
motive in his poetical attempts, as in general there was 
none in any of his activities ; they all stood at the ser- 
vice of his country. What he wanted was that Russia 
should have poetry, and therefore he first of all pre- 
pares the language. He expels the German words 
which have been invading the vocabulary since the day 
of Peter the Great, and when his instrument is ready, 
he compiles the rules and establishes the laws of versi- 
fication ; and when this work is done, he wants Russia 
to h'ave poems such as other countries have, and he 
writes them. This poetry is not a necessity of the 
soul, it is one of those points of superiority in which 
foreign countries excel, like science, like industry ; and 
Russia does not intend to be beaten in such a thing 
as poetry. Had she not come up with other countries 
with her army and her fleet ? Why should poetry stay 
behind ? Is the language not suited for it .'' Lomo- 

1 On Russian medals of the last century : Ricaud de Tiregal, " Medailles 
sur les principaux evenements de I'Empire de Russie." Potsdam, 1772. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 143 

nossov writes: "Charles V, Emperor of the Romans, 
used to say that one must talk Spanish to his God, 
French to his friends, German to his enemies, Italian ^ 
to ladies. Had he known Russian, he certainly would 
have added that it can be spoken to all of them ; for 
he would have found in it the splendour of Spanish, the 
vivacity of French, the strength of German, the tender- 
ness of Italian, and beside all this, the richness and pow- 
erful conciseness of Greek and Latin." ^ Should such 
an instrument resist Lomonossov's rules, or show itself 
less flexible than the language of Racine and Corneille ? 
So Russia gets poetry : it is correct, faultless, just 
what it must be to match the foreign pattern. Sou- 
marokov composes tragedies, Trediakovsky composes 
everything ; but except in some rare instances, this 
poetry is cold, stiff, official. It becomes — just like its 
Western model — an appendage of refined life, an orna- 
ment of the court; it celebrates victories, accessions 
to the throne, births of imperial princes. And with 
all that, in spite of its official pomp, this pseudo- 
classical poetry is incapable of concealing a sort of 
self-satisfaction ; it seems to say : " You see we are 
Russians, and yet we also have poetry just like others." 
And you cannot make out whether that imperceptible 
smile under the uncomfortable mask is national conceit ^ 
or cosmopolitan snobbishness. It will take but fifty 
years more, and in the first years of our century the 
Russian poet will give up this spirit of competition with 
foreign literatures ; he will sing because he wants to sing, 
and not because he wants to sing as well as others ; and 
instead of saying : " We are Russians, mid yet we have 

1 In the dedication of his "Russian Grammar" to the Grand Duke- 
Paul. St. Petersburg, 20th September, 1775. 



144 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

poetry," he will say, "we are Russians, and tJierefore we 
have our poetry." But in those days literature was an 
imported ornament ; it might be compared to the pow- 
dered wigs on the heads of the courtiers ; it is considered 
necessary, yet, as Trediakovsky says : " It is necessary 
like fruit and sweetmeats on a rich table after heavy 
dishes." Science is not treated much differently. It is 
like a waiter who has to answer the government's bell 
— it stands at service. The academy is a big dictionary; 
the academician — a source of useful information. 

Among such conditions, you may yourself appreciate 
the value of Lomonossov, who for the first time in his 
discourse on chemistry spoke not of usefulness, but of 
beauty. He was the first who gathered intellectual joy 
from scientific study — that real scientific study which 
despises all reward except the consciousness of its un- 
selfishness. In literature he was the first who con- 
sidered the Russian language not as a mere vestment 
for clothing foreign forms, but as an object of study, 
and a yet unknown but inexhaustible source of inde- 
pendent beauty and power. He predicts that nothing 
shall be beyond the reach of that language, " For if 
we do not succeed in expressing things with complete 
exactness," he says, "it has to be attributed not to 
our language, but to our lack of skill in using it. He 
who, led by the universal philosophical conception of 
human speech, shall penetrate a little deeper, will dis- 
cover a field of endless breadth or, rather, an almost 
illimitable sea." ^ On the waves of that illimitable 
sea the fisherman's son launched the skiff of Russian 
poetry. 

1 In the dedication of his "Russian Grammar" to the Grand Duke 
Paul. St. Petersburg, 20th September, 1775. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 145 

We have mentioned the two other Hterary names that 
illustrate this epoch. Soumarokov (i 718-1777) was a 
tragedian of greater productiveness than talent; his 
tragedies were Russian history disguised under the 
mantle of French pseudo-classicism/ but he was called 
by his contemporaries the " Russian Racine," ^ and he 
liked to be compared to the great philosopher of Fernay. 
In one of his critical essays he exclaims : " Is it possible 
that people should rather trust a clerk than Voltaire 
or myself!" Trediakovsky (1703-1769) was a versi- 
fier of still less talent and still greater productiveness. 
His verses survive as lasting examples of poetical pov- 
erty.^ But his works on versification had their impor- 
tance. In those days of foreign influence he was the 
first to look for suggestions in the metre of popular 
songs. 

These were the three men who had to carry out the 
ungrateful task of providing for the literary education of 
that light-minded and superficial society which composed 
the court of Empress Elizabeth. A strange degeneration 
is presented by the forms under which foreign influ- 
ence showed itself at this time. Perhaps the succession 
of several women on the throne furthered the relaxation 



^ "Theatre tragique d'A. Soumarokov," translated by M. Pappadopoulo. 
2 vols. Paris, 1801. "Demetrius the Impostor," tragedy. London, 
1806. 

" "Posterity thinks differently. . . . No more incense is being burnt 
before the idol, yet let us not touch the marble pedestal; let us preserve 
in its integrity the inscription : ' Great Soumarokov.' . . . We may set 
up new statues if necessary, but let us not destroy those erected by the 
noble zeal of our forefathers." Karamsin, " Pantheon of Russian 
Writers." 1802 (Russian). 

^ "Could good will and assiduity take the place of talent, whom would 
not Trediakovsky have surpassed in versification and eloquence?" Ibid. 
L 



146 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

of the energy which had been imparted to Hfe under 
the impulsion of Peter the Great. Dutch wharves and 
manufactories had been the school of the reformer's 

,/ generation ; under his daughter it is French drawing- 
rooms, barber-shops, and restaurants. What would her 
father have said to this, he who, when asked by two Ger- 
man princesses — the Electress of Hannover and the 
Electress of Brandenburg — what, was his favourite oc- 
cupation, — for answer showed his callous hands .-* Now 
French influence was smoothing away on the hands of 
posterity the inheritance of their fathers' Dutch cal- 
losities. It made them refined, fond of theatricals; 
military schools became like academies of dancing ; 
cadets performed at court ; the empress herself presided 
over all details. In the tittle-tattle of that spruce coun- 
try, literary interests had but little place, and French 
influence came in chiefly by the channel of frivolity and 
^ indolence. Only a few received it by the channel of 
thought. Among these was the wife of the heir to the 
throne, the young Grand Duchess Catherine. "If I 
have any notion of anything," she writes to Voltaire a 
few years later, "I owe it to you." ^ The circumstances 
of her accession are well known. 

Empress Elizabeth died in 1761,^ while the Russian 
army, taking part in the Seven Years' War, was pressing 
upon the king of Prussia, after having entered Berlin. 
Thanks to her death the coalition of the "three petti- 

^ coats" — as Frederick the Great used to call Empress 
Elizabeth, Empress Maria Theresa, and the Marquise 
de Pompadour — comes to an end. The Duke of Hol- 

^ A. Brueckner, "Catharina II." Berlin, 1888. 

2 On the Empress Elizabeth : Vandal, " Louis XV et Elisabeth." Paris, 
1882. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 147 

stein, Emperor Peter III, succeeds his aunt. He had 
always worshipped Frederick the Great, and the army 
is recalled.^ The new emperor was hated. His brutal- 
ity, his cynicism, his arrogance, his contempt for all that 
was Russian, his ostentatious preference of his Hol- 
stein officers, and above all, his predilection for all that 
was German and Prussian, — contributed only too much 
to bring into light the charms of the empress. The 
young but prudent Princess of Anhalt Zerbst had pre- 
pared her way, slowly, but with a remarkable persever- 
ance. "I have always considered it better," she writes, 
"to possess the hearts of all than the hearts of a few. 
To this deliberate conduct I owe my having attained 
the height on which I have been looked up to by all 
Europe." And, indeed, she possessed all hearts. Inde- 
pendently of any political consideration, the insulting 
behaviour of the emperor towards his wife caused every- 
body to be on her side. When her personal security be- 
came compromised by the uncertainty of the position to 
which the extravagances of Peter had brought her as well 
as himself, all who held power became her alHes. The 
crisis had come. "I had either to perish with a fool," 
she wrote some years later, "or to save myself with the 
multitude which meant to deliver itself from him."^ 

On the 28th of June, Catherine was proclaimed empress 
regent ; on the next day Peter was arrested. Frederick 
the Great used to say in speaking of his worshipper, 
that he left the throne as an obedient child leaves the 

1 On the Seven Years' War : Frederic le Grand, " QLuvres posthumes."' 
Amsterdam, 1789. "Histoire de mon temps," in " Publicationen aiis den 
Preussischen Staatsarchiven." Berlin, 1876, vol. iv. Ranke, "Der Ur- 
sprung des Siebenjahrigen Krieges." 1871. 

2 A. Brueckner, op. cit. 



148 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

room when sent to bed. On the 6th of July, Peter III 
went to sleep forever.^ When the Empress, upset by the 
terrible news, announced it to her friend the Princess 
Dashkoff,^ that future president of the Academy of 
Sciences exclaimed : " Too soon for your glory and for 
mine ! " Till to-day posterity is uncertain as to how far 
the glory of Catherine should be clouded by the oppor- 
tuneness of Peter's death.^ 

The personality of Catherine the Great appears 
double : the empress as she was, and the empress as 
she wanted to be seen. No monarch ever cared for 
contemporary opinion as much as she did. All the 

1 Eleven years later a Cossack, Pougachoff, assumed the name of Peter 
III. In a few months' time he raised the whole southeast of the country. 
With great difficulty his army was overcome by General Michelson, the 
impostor was made prisoner by Souvorov, and executed in Moscow in 
1774. ("The History of Pougachoff's Rebellion," by Poushkin. Trans- 
lations — see Lecture VI, foot-notes.) On Peter III : " Die merkwUrdige 
Lebensgeschichte Peters des Dritten." Leipzig, 1733. A. Brueckner, 
•" Zur Geschichte Peter III und Catharina II " in " Russische Revue," 
XL 

2 " Mon histoire." Archives of the Prince Worontsoff, vol. xxi. Mos- 
cow, 188 1. " Memoirs of Princess Dashkaw." London, 1859. 

3 See A. Brueckner, " Catharina II." Berlin, 1888. Schloezer, " Fried- 
rich der Grosse und Catharina II." Berlin, 1859. Arneth, "Joseph II und 
Catharina von Russland." Vienna, 1869. Jouffiret, "Cathefine II et son 
regne." 2 vols. Paris, i860. Valiszevsky (from the French), "The 
Romance of an Empress." London, 1894. "The Story of a Throne." 
2 vols. London, 1895. Bilbassov, " Geschichte Catharinas." Berlin, 2 B. 
1 891-1893. De Lariviere, " Catherine II et la revolution frangaise." Paris, 
1895. Kobeko, " Lefance d'un Tsar," translated by D. de Benckendorff. 
Paris, 1896. 

Contemporary: Catherine II, " Memoires." London, 1859. Castera, 
"Histoire de Catherine II." 3 vols. 1798 (superficial). Count de Se- 
gur, " Memoires ou Souvenirs et Anecdotes." 3 vols. Paris, 1827. Prince 
de Ligne, " CEuvres," 4 vols. , and " Memoires." Brussels, i860. J.Har- 
ris, " Diaries and Correspondence of J. Harris, first lord Malmesbury." 
London, 1844. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 149 

resources of her intelligence, her literary talent, the 
means given by rank and power, were employed by her 
for establishing the reputation she wanted to prevail. 
Her correspondence with Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alem- 
bert, Grimm, Mme. Geoffrin, and all the celebrities of 
contemporary France, which displays more brightness 
and good humour than seriousness, was nothing but hunt- 
ing for notoriety. As in our days cheap chromolithog- 
raphers spread the features of a sovereign all over his 
kingdom, so in these spirited letters she was multiplying 
and spreading her moral portrait all over Europe. And, 
of course, the portrait was pleasant. In the gorgeous 
frame of monarchical splendour, with beautiful parks 
and palaces in the purest Louis XV style in the back- 
ground, surrounded with the fame of military exploits, 
the features of this most attractive, bright, and amiable 
woman roused enthusiasm. They were praised abroad, 
they were exalted at home ; they were celebrated in 
beautiful verses, and as such they were handed down to 
posterity. The brightness of that portrait throws its 
light on the whole environment, and communicates to 
this reign an exterior splendour which has seldom been 
surpassed. The empress had the rare fortune of im- 
pressing herself on people's minds just as she wanted to 
be seen. Perhaps the judgment of posterity will find less 
charm in the portrait of her who cared so much for the 
opinion of contemporaries ; those who study the condi- 
tions of the country and go to the root of things have to 
admit many deficiencies under that dazzling splendour.^ 

^ Poushkin was perhaps the first to show the reverse of the medal. 
In a historical essay written in Kishinioff, 1822, the great poet reveals a 
sense of historical criticism which is all the more remarkable as only 
twenty-six years separate his writing from Catherine's death. 



I50 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

But in our case it is the empress as she wanted to be 
seen who interests us, for it is she who influenced the 
intellectual movement, she who patronized literature, 
she who impressed imaginations, she who passed into 
poetry. By following her in her relations to philosophy 
and literature, let us try to trace the intellectual picture 
of the time.^ 

Under Catherine French philosophy pervades Rus- 
sian intellectual life. We have seen that in the pre- 
ceding generation French philosophers had their readers, 
and French poets their imitators, but the taste was not 
universal, — it grew to a passion now. In this, Russia 
underwent the same influence as the rest of Europe in 
those days. Frederick the Great welcomed Voltaire to 
Potsdam, the Academy of Berlin was presided over by 
Maupertuis ; Catherine received Diderot at St. Peters- 
burg, entertained Grimm at Tsarskoye Selo. Perhaps in 
Russia the movement was more exaggerated than else- 
where. Russian military schools swarmed with French 
professors, rich families kept French teachers for their 
children,^ — the Empress had given the example, she 
had asked D'Alembert to take charge of her son's 
education ; the philosopher declined the offer, but later 
her eldest grandsons, Alexander and Constantine, were 
entrusted to the Swiss Laharpe, a fervent disciple of 
French ideas.^ A touching intercourse established it- 
self between St. Petersburg and Paris ; no Russian went 

^ A writer calls the Empress Catherine a " microscope of her time." 
Mordovtsev," Russian Women." 3 vols. St. Petersburg, 1874 (Russian). 

^ Among these was the brother of Marat. He did not share the revo- 
lutionary opinions of his illustrious brother, and even asked to have his 
name changed. He was called after his birthplace — Baudry. 

^ His " Memoires." Paris and Geneva, 1864. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 151 

abroad without paying his tribute of personal respect 
to Voltaire.^ 

A strange, I should say a sad, moral aspect that 
society presents which, eager for real mental aliment, 
threw itself upon the negative philosophy of the last 
century. Transplanted from the historical soil which 
determined their development, deprived of their prac- 
tical union with the conditions of life, those bombas- 
tic sentences on liberty, fraternity, equality, stuff the 
Russian brains of that time with shallow phrases. The 
inner link between the ideas proclaimed, and those events 
of the French history which gradually led to the great 
revolution, escapes their observation. The Empress her- 
self in the beginning does not understand ; she continues 
her philosophical flirtations with the men who are the 
intellectual representatives of an epoch the mere re- 
membrance of which shall later make her shudder. 
That shortsightedness as to the link between ideas and 
events is the more striking because in her apprecia- 
tion of events, she had a remarkably keen perception of 
cause and effect. In politics she is extraordinarily far- 

1 The old philosopher was not inaccessible to these marks of devotion 
from the side of the "Scythians." Under the Empress Elizabeth he soli- 
cited and obtained election as honorary member of the Academy of St. 
Petersburg, — later, the official appointment to write the history of Peter 
the Great. Lomonossov helped him with documents and translations, yet 
he remained sceptical as to the success of the enterprise. Frederic the 
Great felt very much irritated at the appearance of the first volume. " Pray, 
what is this idea of writing the history of Siberian wolves and bears?" he 
writes to the philosopher. And the latter in quoting the king's words in a 
letter to D'Alembert, adds : " Yet when they entered Berlin, they proved 
to be very well educated bears." (S. Solovieff, " History of Russia," vol. 
xxvi.) The books and manuscripts left after Voltaire's death were bought 
by the Empress Catherine (1778). The "Voltaire Library" forms now a 
department of the Imperial Public Library at St. Petersburg. 



152 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

sighted; she almost anticipates the events of French 
history. In the autumn of 1789, she says that Louis 
XVI will have the end of Charles I. In her letters to 
Grimm as early as 1790, she predicts the apparition of 
a Caesar in France.^ But these were politics, and poli- 
tics, in her opinion, seems to have nothing to do with that 
which was considered pure philosophy. A sort of duality 
creates a contradiction between her ideas and her acts, 
but it does not seem to trouble her. The American 
Revolutionary War fills her with indignation, and yet 
she is sincerely disappointed when General Lafayette, 
detained with the Assembly of the Notables, declines 
her invitation to accompany hfer in her journey through 
the Crimea. On the other hand, Franklin expresses 
the wish to pay her a visit, and she asks Grimm to dis- 
suade the old man from the long journey. In the inter- 
esting diary of her private secretary Krapovitsky, who 
during ten years (i 782-1 793) kept a concise record of 
his conversations with the Empress, we read under the 
date of the 6th of June, 1782, the following sentence in 
French: "I don't like him," and in parenthesis, "por- 
trait of Franklin." 

Those sovereigns of the end of the eighteenth century 
who were representatives of the so-called "enlightened 
absolutism," like Frederick II, Joseph II, Catherine II, 
must have experienced strange bifurcations of professed 
principles and inborn ideas. Jostled between love of 
popularity and dread of revolution, they were all double- 
faced at that time.^ No wonder that the empress " as she 

1 The letters of the Empress Catherine to Grimm (French text), pub- 
lished by the Imperial Russian Historical Society, vol. xxiii; the letters of 
Grimm to the Empress, vol. xxxiii of the same publication. 

^ It is rather amusing that in Catherine's letters to Grimm, Joseph II 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 153 

wanted to be seen" invites Beaumarchais to bring over 
to St. Petersburg his "Figaro's Marriage," which had 
just been interdicted in Paris, while the Empress "as 
she was " falls ill and goes to bed when she learns that 
the King of France has been executed. 

And society, too, was double-faced at that time. 
Those refined courtiers, who knew by heart Voltaire 
and Rousseau, not only did not suffer from, but seemed 
not to notice the contradiction between books and life, — 
the great principles proclaiming the "rights of man" on 
one side, and the servitude of the peasants on the other. 
Of course, dreams of equality will always remain dreams; 
law may proclaim all emancipations possible, — life will 
always paralyze their full application ; yet they have 
their importance as idealistic postulates forcing our con- 
science to acknowledge the wrong in the actual state 
of things. This translation of idea into action was al- 
most unknown in these times we are speaking of. The 
Empress, who in many respects stood above her envi- 
ronment, had made during the first years of her reign 
several attempts at putting the question of the emanci- 
pation of the serfs on a firm footing, — she had to give 
it up : she had to spare the interests of those to whom 
she owed her accession to the throne. 

Thus, as we have said, French philosophy was entering 
into Russian minds deprived of inner links with actu- 
ality; but its links with the past escaped comprehen- 
sion as well. That this philosophy and this literature 
were representatives of a whole civilization, that they 
were the contemporary stratum of a long historical for- 
mation, that they were a result of the past and not merely 

(before his first visit to Russia) is spoken of under the nickname " I'homme 
aux deux physionomies." 



154 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

a specimen of the present, — that had not been grasped 
by our fathers. Their culture, very considerable in the 
quantitative sense, was superficial both in a contempo- 
rary and in a historical sense. They took what is 
known in German aesthetic as the " scheinbare Ober- 
flache," — the visible surface of contemporary culture, 
— and abstract as it was, it made them abstract and un- 
fitted to the soil ; philosophy amalgamated with brains, 
not with life. Only much later, after the terrors of the 
Revolution, and perhaps still more after the invasion of 
Napoleon I in 1812, French philosophy was made re- 
sponsible for historical events, and, as it often happens 
in similar cases, things were exaggerated : those who 
professed French ideas were regarded as sympathizers 
with revolution. Throughout the whole first part of the 
present century " Voltairianism " was synonymous with 
apostasy; a " Voltairianist " was a man condemned to hell, 
whom good Christians must avoid. Yet they were not 
dangerous ; indeed, they were survivors of a past which 
had become innocuous, and soon fell out of fashion. 
But their memory lived on, and the younger genera- 
tion was already frisking in the prairies of romanticism, 
when old ladies in the provinces were still crossing them- 
selves at the mere name of Voltaire. 

Let us now pass on to literature. The poets of the 
Catherinian time appear old-fashioned in our days, but 
in the succession of literary periods they have their 
historical importance, and taken in their own contem- 
porary atmosphere, they certainly present a brilliant ap- 
pearance, well deserving the fame with which their 
names were surrounded at the splendid court of the 
enlightened Empress. No sovereign, before or since 
Catherine the Great, took more interest in literature 



1 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 155 

and writers than she did;^ she was a writer herself. 
In a time when literary work did not constitute an 
independent career this special attention granted to 
literature is of important significance ; it had its influ- 
ence and consequences. 

We have seen that Lomonossov had constituted him- 
self the singer of Peter the Great. With the pseudo- 
classical tone of his lyre this official character of poetry 
passes over to the next generation. The Empress, 
with her encouraging smile, captivates the heart of 
the national muse, and becomes not only the centre of 
poets, but the chief object of their songs. Derjavine, 
the most brilliant among them, declares in one of his 
odes to have no other ambition than to become illustri- 
ous through having celebrated her deeds. 

" I sang, I sing, and I will sing them. 
A sun, a moon, for coming ages, 
Thy glorious image, and thy name. 
I will extol ; I wilj exalt thee ; 
And through thee become immortal." 

A sort of fellowship establishes itself between the 
Empress and the writers. In her comedies she herself 
gives the example of the satirical tone. A number of 
satirical magazines arise ; Von Wiezin writes his famous 
comedies ; plays by the Empress and others are per- 
formed on the private stage of the Hermitage palace — 
a frank and healthy laughter resounds at the court of 
her who used to say that no great man ever lived 
who did not possess an inexhaustible supply of gaiety.^ 

1 A. N. Pypin, "The Times of Catherine II." " European Messenger," 
May, June, July, 1895 (Russian). 
^ A. Brueckner, " Catharina II." 



156 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Thus the two tendencies of the literature of the time 
are marked by the Empress herself: the pseudo-classical 
trumpet proclaiming her glory, and the caustic speech 
of sarcasm ridiculing the old generation, and spurring 
on the young. 

— Derjavine (i 743-181 6), as we have said, is the most 
brilliant among the first group. Less emphatical than 
Lomonossov, he himself establishes his points of ex- 
cellence when he says that he was the first who sang 
in a pleasing tone, who spoke of God in simplicity 
of heart, and told truth to monarchs "smilingly." If 
we compare him with his predecessors, this self-ap- 
preciation is very nearly adequate. He, in fact, con- 
descended to leave those artificial heights where poetry 
had sought its vocabulary ; he dwells in a lower region 
than Lomonossov, yet, compared to the next genera- 
tion, he is still in the clouds. It is not his fault, it is 
not the fault of literature ; all streams of intellectual 
life moved in unnatural channels, intelligences walked 
on stilts, and were actuated by the desire of living up 
to patterns, not of penetrating into the substance of 
questions ; a void separated intellectual interests from 
the interests of life. Derjavine made attempts at step- 
ping over that vacuum ; he introduced into his solemn 
verse satirical strokes of everyday life. In a letter 
to the Princess Dashkoff, president of the Academy 
of Sciences, drawing a parallel between Lomonossov 
and himself, he thus establishes the difference between 
them : " He had recourse to magnificent tales, and 
to accessory ornamentation, whereas I have recourse 
to nature alone, and to truth, which history will con- 
firm." And, indeed, in his ode " Felitsa," where the 
Empress is celebrated under the fictitious name of a 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 157 

Kirguise princess, he opposes to her virtues his own 
shortcomings. Under the autobiographical mask we 
must look for the aspect of contemporary society; its' 
luxury, its indolence, its roughness, are represented 
with characteristic strokes, but they do not iill up the 
void we spoke of ; without communicating reality to 
his poetry they simply remain specimens of bad taste. 
Yet they have their historical importance. A critic 
says that Derjavine's poems are " poetical annals " of 
Catherine's reign.^ In one of the last works which old 
Soumarokov, a survivor of the Elizabethan time, offered 
to Catherine, he says : " The reign of an Augustus 
needs its Horace." But Soumarokov did not become 
the Horace of Catherine ; ^ he was supplanted by an- 
other. Derjavine, whose sonorous language, animated 
with a real practical breath, was just the instrument 
suited for the splendour of that court, for the glory of 
the victories in the Crimea and on the Danube, for the 
pomp of that society, the pride of the grandees, and 
the fantastic military exploits of Souvorov, Potiomkin, 
Roumiantsov, and all those others who formed what 
Poushkin called "the glorious brood of Catherinian 
eagles." ^ 

If we abstract from Derjavine's work the special ^ 

^ A. Galakov, "History of Russian Literature." 2 vols. Moscow, 
1S94 (Russian). 

2 P. Polevoy, " History of Russian Literature." 5th ed. St. Peters- 
burg, 1883 (Russian). 

^ On campaigns and exterior politics of the time : A. Brueckner, " Russ- 
lands Politic im Mittelmeer, 1788 und 1789," in the "Hist. Zeitschrift," 
xxvi. " Schweden und Russland," in " Hist. Zeitschrift," xxii. " Dan- 
marks Neutralitat im Schwedisch-Russischen Kriege im Jahre 1788," in 
the " Baltische Monatsschrift." Neue Folge, II. Carl Bergholm, "Die 
Bewaffnete Neutralitat." Berhn, 1884. 



158 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

merits of contemporaneousness, and the defects of old- 
fashionedness, we shall discover elements of real poeti- 
cal beauty which have their lasting value in art. His 
lyrical poems have genuine sentiment ; his ode entitled 
"God" is a fine specimen of solemn poetry.^ In the 
main, he was our first poet ; for Lomonossov, even in 
his best verse, remains a splendid orator. In Lomo- 
nossov the poet is overweighed by the scientist ; Der- 
javine is nothing but poet.^ His keeping closer to life, 
though it did not always produce happy results from 
the aesthetical point of view, is nevertheless impor- 
tant in the historical development of our literature. 
In the pseudo-classical temple those specimens of bad 
taste to which we have referred were bold innovations 
which opened the doors to torrents of real life.^ 

Another element which still more undermined the 
authority of the pseudo-classical sanctuary was the 
satirical movement of the time. With Kantemir, sa- 
tirical literature became an ally of the new ideas, and 
the Empress Catherine availed herself of this powerful 
means of educating and directing public opinion. 

In the private imperial theatre of the Hermitage 
palace in St. Petersburg,'^ performances, perhaps unique 
in history, were taking place. On the stage the meas- 
ures of the government, and innovations in social life, 

^ It has been translated into German, French, English, Italian, Span- 
ish, Polish, Tschech, Latin, and Japanese. (Fifteen French translations.) 

2 Belinsky, Works, vol. viii. 

^ " Derjavine's poetry," says Belinsky, " is a brilliant page of the history 
of Russian poetry; it is not yet poetry." Works, vol. vii. 

^ The beautiful picture gallery of the Hermitage palace was started by 
Catherine the Great. The reproduction of Raphael's loggia of the Vatican 
was executed at her order. Goethe, while in Rome, saw the copies of the 
frescoes being made. (" Italienische Reise." 3d of September, 1787.) 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 159 

were criticised and abused by old ladies deploring "the 
good old time," by obscurantist adherents of the past, 
by idle youths who would neither learn nor serve ; and 
in the hall, on the picturesque amphitheatre of marble 
seats, the brilliant court surrounding the Empress was 
exulting and applauding. An old lady on the stage is 
exasperated at these new plays where people are por- 
trayed and made fun of. " But why are such kind of 
plays permitted.''" exclaims her interlocutor. "Why, 
my dear man," bursts out the old lady, "what if those 
themselves who ought to be interested in forbidding 
them exult more than anyone else ! " The Empress, 
indeed, exulted " more than anyone else," for she was 
not only spectator — she was the author. 

Portraits, in fact, were presented, but they were raised 
to types, and became portraits of customs, not of peo- 
ple ; they belonged to literature, sometimes to poli- 
tics,^ not to gossip. And they were sharply drawn, for 
Catherine had a good equipment of observation and 
knowledge of human nature. Few sovereigns knew 
their surrounding as she did. In that crowd of min- 
isters, diplomatists, writers, scientists, which composed 
her court, she knew every single character. When in 
her letters she happens to mention some of them, 
her few strokes are always to the point ; she knows the 
qualities and weaknesses of everyone. Fond of men 
of talents, she lifted them out of the multitude, she 
helped their individualization, and the imperial benevo- 
lence imposed them upon society. At her court, how- 
ever numerous the crowd, she recognizes in each his 
moral physiognomy, his intellectual rank, and gives to 

1 See A. Brueckner, " Eine komische Oper aus dem Jahre 1788," in 
" Baltische Monatsschrift." 1867. 



i6o PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

each his nickname. They have all been divined, stud- 
ied, and labelled by the Empress ; she has a different 
way of talking, a different selection of wits, according 
to her interlocutor.^ Her brightness, her versatility, 
the extent of her knowledge, the inexhaustibleness of 
gayety she possessed and infused into others, can hardly 
be conceived even from her own letters.^ " When I 
used to part from the Empress," says Grimm, " I often 
felt so electrified that for half the night I used to walk 
up and down in my room."^ 

These qualities, added to a wonderful mastery of 
the Russian language, could not but communicate a 
great value to Catherine's writings.* They had still 
another importance. " Her comedies," says a critic, "are 
a brilliant tribute paid to the authority of thought and 
to the moral sovereignty of literature."^ There was an 
outburst of periodicals in St. Petersburg and Moscow. 
This kind of publication was not new ; Soumarokov, 
under Empress Elizabeth, had founded the first Russian 
periodical in 1759. "The Busy Bee" lasted one year, 
yet it called forth a number of imitations. In the one 
year, 1769, seven new publications appear, always in 
the satirical tone. The campaign they led was directed 



1 Particulars on Catherine's court : Hardt, " Memoires d'un gentil- 
homme Suedois." Berlin, 1788. 

2 On Catherine's character : A. Brueckner, " Zur Characteristic der 
Kaiserin Catharina," in " Russische Revue," v. 

3 A. Brueckner, " Catharina II." 

* Catherine left fourteen comedies, nine operas (text), seven prov- 
erbs (short plays), and other writings not in dramatic form. (French 
translations : " O temps, O mceurs ! " Comedie, trad, par Leclerc. Paris, 
1826. " Le Czarevitz Chlore, conte moral." Berlin, 1782.) 

^ Prince Viazemsky, "Von Wiezin." (Works. 9 vols. St. Peters- 
burg, 1 878- 1 884.) 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE i6i 

* . 

on the old subject : resistance to or misunderstanding 
of the reform, obscurantism or superficial dandyism ; 
but new subjects also were introduced : the pre-eminence 
of the foreign element in the upper classes, the insuffi- 
cient interest in that which is purely Russian, provincial 
bribery, domestic despotism. The latter furnished the 
subject of a play which is like the foundation-stone of 
the Russian comedy. 

"The Under-aged," by Von Wiezin (1745-1792), is 
an interesting monument in our literary evolution, mark- 
ing a rapid step on the way of emancipation from the 
tyranny of pseudo-classical forms. The comedies which 
preceded Von Wiezin presented pictures of would-be 
Russian life set in French frames — an attempt which 
proved most ridiculous in its results. Boileau says that 
Ronsard was "talking" Greek and Latm in French. 
In our first comedies, even in those of Soumarokov, peo- 
ple were " living " French in Russian. The well-known 
names of Alceste, Oronte, consecrated by Moliere, illus- 
trate the play-bills ; sometimes they alternate with Rus- 
sian names, but no Russian element enters into the 
characters or the plot where housemaids and valets 
are the indispensable spring, and the marriage agree- 
ment the inevitable solution. 

Von Wiezin, in his comedy, breaks the chains of this 
imposed tradition ; adherence to the old pattern makes 
itself felt, indeed, in that sort of symmetrical disposition 
of the characters by which each vice has its counterpart 
of virtue ; also in the abuse of sermonizing and theoriz- 
ing ; but the personages, the interests, are all genuinely 
national. The plot is the eternal story of two lovers — 
obstacles and a marriage. The obstacle, in this case, 
is a despotic mother who wants the girl for her son. 



1 62 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

a grown-up minor, illiterate, ignorant ; trained in the 
principles of his parent, who wonders " what's the use of 
learning geography ? A cab takes one anywhere nowa- 
days ! " The two figures — that of the mother and 
that of the son — are the best in the play. The others 
are either too highly caricatured in their defects or too 
fastidious in their virtue. The obstacles are overcome 
and the marriage arranged, thanks to the girl's uncle, 
— a rich proprietor of gold mines in Siberia, — the 
"American uncle" of the modern French comedy. He 
is the preacher of the play; his endless sermonizings on 
honour and virtue interrupt the action and make it very 
heavy to the listener. Our best critic, Belinsky, con- 
siders "The Under-aged" not so much a comedy as a 
satire endeavouring to become a comedy.^ This defini- 
tion makes clear its defects : not enough action, and 
too much preaching. And yet so much real comical- 
ness and unborrowed life are contained in the play that, 
although written 1 1 3 years ago, it carries us away even 
nowadays. The scene in the first act, where the mother 
scolds the tailor for having cut for her son a coat that 
does not fit, is in the highest degree amusing. The 
success of "The Under-aged" was immense. The au- 
thor was covered with praise. " Die or write no more! " 
exclaimed, after the first performance. Prince Potiom- 
kin, the all-powerful favourite of the Empress at that 
time. 2 Von Wiezin followed the second part of the 
advice; he wrote no more plays. "The Under-aged" 
has passed into the national consciousness ; several 
proper names of its personages have become familiar 

1 Works, vol. viii. 

^ See A. Brueckner, " Potiomkins Gliick und Ende," in " Baltische 
Monatsschrift." Neue Folge, i. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 163 

appellations ; many sentences have become prover- 
bial. 

Such are the chief specimens of the literature of the 
eighteenth century. So far as brevity has allowed us 
we have tried to demonstrate that its character stood in 
harmony with the character of the whole intellectual 
culture of the time : like philosophy, like learning, like 
social customs, literature, a hundred years ago, was 
annexed to life, not incorporated with it. Yet that 
eighteenth century, so strangely picturesque in its com- 
bination of refinement and roughness, so pretentious in 
its self-content, so touching in its attempts of self-edu- 
cation, so sad in its practical insolvency, — that eigh- 
teenth century which speedily will seem hardly less 
remote than the seventeenth, — that eighteenth century 
deserves gratitude from posterity. Under Peter the 
Great, culture was forced upon the country ; under 
Catherine the Great, it was being adapted to the coun- 
try. It had now to be assimilated. 

One day, in 181 5, in the Lyceum, — the high school 
annexed to the suburban palace of Tsarskoye Selo, — 
great excitement reigned among the pupils : old Der- 
javine was coming to assist at the examination. He 
came, the venerable poet — white-haired, bent under hi& 
seventy-two years. He nearly slept from weakness 
until the examination in Russian literature began ; then 
he awoke. The pupils were speaking of him, — declaim- 
ing his poems, — his eyes became bright, his face was 
illuminated, he was transfigured. A youth steps forth :. 
his hair curls like that of a negro, his lips are thick, his 
eyes are living coal ; there is something African in his 
face. He is introduced as a young poet. He is asked 
to recite some of his verses. 



1 64 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

" I told my reminiscences," he writes later, " stand- 
ing at two paces' distance from Derjavine. I cannot 
describe the state of my soul when I came to the verse 
where I mention Derjavine's name. My boyish voice 
resounded, my heart was beating in wild ecstasy, I 
do not remember how I finished, where I fled to. 
Derjavine was transported ; he asked for me, he called 
for me, he wanted to embrace me. They looked for 
me ; they did not find me." 

" My time has come to an end," said Derjavine, a few 
days later; "another Derjavin'=" shall reveal himself to 
the world, one who on the school-bench has surpassed 
all other poets." 

Under such an omen life was entered by Poushkin. 



LECTURE VI 

(1779-1837) 

Suddenness and many-sidedness of intellectual growth in the 
nineteenth century. New literary currents traced back into 
the eighteenth century : Novikov and the Moscovian circle. 
Europe's literary horizon at the opening of the century. 

Sentimentahsm in Russia. Karamsin. " Letters of a Rus- 
sian tourist." " Poor Lizzie " and the sentimental novel. The 
" History of the Russian State." Romanticism, — Joukovsky. 
A new sense in poetry. 

Poushkin. His hterary career. His poetry, — character of 
its beauty, aesthetical excellence and ethical height. His sub- 
ject — life. Russian society in the first decades of the cen- 
tury. " Eugene Oneguin," — the novel, character of its charm. 
Poushkin's lyrical poetry, — its chief features, many-sidedness, 
harmony. His language. Nationalism and universality. 



LECTURE VI 

(1779-1837) 

The birth of a poet is the principal event in chronology. 
Emerson. 



I 



N our introductory lecture we said that it was a 
hard task to put ten centuries of history into 
eight hours' time. 

" Turning the accomplishment of many years 
Into an hour-glass," 



as Shakespeare says. It is, perhaps, still harder to put 
in the remaining three lectures the ninety-five years of 
the present century. The rapidity, the extent, and the 
progressive concentration of the intellectual activity 
have been such that, if we take the present state of 
the Russian mind, laden' with all that has been accom- 
plished during this century, and if we turn our looks 
backward to the eighteenth, we are amazed at the dis- 
proportion between the final and the starting-point. 
Our modern critical spirit, trained on the basis of 
evolution with its methods of gradual progress, stands 
perplexed at the suddenness of this growth. Who has 
not experienced that upsetting sort of surprise which we 
feel on seeing a child after an interval of several years } 
The same kind of surprise does the critic feel when 
comparing the different periods of Russia's literary 

167 



1 68 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

development. The pulsations of Russian life in the 
middle of this century were more rapid than at any- 
time of her history ; compared to the preceding century 
Russia seems almost another state. We lose our way 
in the multiplicity of the currents we have to trace back 
to their source. The ramification of the genealogical 
threads is such that it seems impossible to reduce them 
to those few elements from which they took their gen- 
esis. Without underrating the value of the preced- 
ing century, to which we paid our tribute of homage in 
the last lecture, we cannot help wondering at the dis- 
proportion of the succession. However great the efforts 
of the eighteenth century may have been, the results 
offered by the nineteenth make this latter appear like a 
mountain born of a mouse. In our attempt at inves- 
tigating the growth and development of Russian thought 
from the Catherinian epoch on, we shall have to pro- 
ceed with a different method than the one used hitherto. 
We had been led through the preceding centuries by 
the thread of events ; the material history was like the 
spine round which the facts of intellectual and literary 
life grouped themselves. The sovereigns of Moscow were 
the central points marking the succession of historical 
periods ; the history of Russia was confined to the offi- 
cial history of Moscow. Under Peter the Great it 
became still more so ; we might say that the Emperor's 
biography is the country's history. In the reign of 
Catherine we abandoned the thread of events, we re- 
garded the mere intellectual side ; yet though neglect- 
ing facts of official history, we did not get out of the 
official circles of society. The Empress, the court, St. 
Petersburg, embody the intellectual life of the epoch. 
Russia's culture at that time — with the exception of a 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



small circle which groups itself round the University of 
Moscow, and of which we will speak later, is confined 
to the Winter Palace, and, as an annex to it, the Acad- 
emy of Science. With the first years of the present 
century things change. A scientific and literary stream 
makes irruption into the life of the nation. An inde- 
pendent body of writers, poets, and scientists, by the 
power of their work and the authority of talent, regulate 
the tendencies and establish the direction of Russian 
thought. The official circles, which till then had been 
the only workers of culture, now get such allies that 
they lose the exclusive importance they had in the pre- 
ceding century. For a hundred years they had been sow- 
ing ; now the seeds began to germinate ; the imported 
elements absorbed by the earth reappear on the sur- 
face regenerated, and, with a rapidity and exuberance 
of growth which only virgin soils can produce, gave an 
offspring of intellectual activity which probably will 
never be surpassed in our country. If you consider 
that over two hundred years separate the German trans- 
lation of the Bible by Luther from Goethe, and that only 
fifty years separate the Russian Grammar by Lomo- \J 
nossov from Poushkin,^ and less than a hundred years 
lie between Lomonossov and Leo Tolstoi, you will 
get an idea of the enforced pace by which Russian 
thought was advancing. To follow up this growth, we 
shall have to abandon the official history; we should 
have no time for both. If in the preceding lectures 
literature has appeared as an appendix to events, hence- 
forth it will become the central point of our studies, and 
official history and court circles will be considered by 

1 As to their philological and literary significance these moments are 
equivalent. 



lyo PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

us only so far as they influenced or were reflected by 
our writers. 

With Derjayine the official character of our literature 
disappears. He was the last representative of that im- 
posed poetry which was the result of imported culture. 
Strange to say, not only will the style of the eighteenth 
century reappear no more, but it will have scarcely 
any influence on the later literary growth. With the 
exception of a few examples offered by Poushkin's 
earliest poems — where it appears more as a tribute 
to authority than an ingredient of poetry, more as a 
debt of homage than an inborn taste — pseudo-classi- 
cism dies childless. None of the subsequent literary 
streams, if traced back, can be attached to Derjavine ; 
they come from quite a different source. If we fol- 
low up the intellectual currents of the present century, 
we shall be led, not to the court of the Empress Cathe- 
rine, not even to St. Petersburg, but to the University of 
Moscow; to the famous "Friendly Scientific Society," 
which called forth so many enlightened workers in 
literature, and the centre of which was the noble figure 
of Novikov. This man, who devoted his life, his untir- 
ing energy, his whole fortune to works of education and 
to the diffusion of knowledge, exercised the most im- 
portant influence on the direction of the intellectual 
and literary forces of the time. 

In 1779, he was intrusted with the direction of the 
University Press in Moscow. During the first three 
years of his direction more books were published than 
during the preceding twenty-four years. The best in- 
tellectual forces group themselves round him; the 
"Friendly Society" becomes an enthusiastic promoter 
of learning, writing, travelling, translating, publishing. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 171 

A number of printing offices spring up under Novikov's 
patronage ; the best periodicals of the Catherinian epoch, 
the " Historical Dictionary of Russian Writers," ^ the 
beautiful collection of historical documents which form 
the thirty-one volumes of the "Ancient Russian Biblio- 
theca," are but single specimens of the wonderful activ- 
ity displayed by this man, who spared nothing for 
collecting materials and spreading publications. In a 
time when official position and court honours were the 
only source of authority, Novikov had become a power 
without availing himself of either. He was a precur- 
sory, individual specimen of the social forces which, yet 
slumbering, were about to break out independently of 
the official circles of the court.^ The poet Heraskov 
(1733-1807),^ superintendent of the Moscow University, 
became his zealous helper ; the high school, founded by 
him as an annex to the University, was the best educa- 
tional establishment of the time. A few names will 
suffice to show the Hterary importance of Novikov's 

^ With this book actually begins the science of Russian literature. A. N. 
Pypin, " Questions of Literary History," " European Messenger," October, 
1893 (Russian). 

2 Unfortunately he had been involved in masonic affairs and secret 
societies, which in the last years of Catherine's reign excited the suspi- 
cion of the government, alarmed at the successes of the French Revolution. 
Envy and calumny vs^orked his undoing. In 1782 he was arrested, accused 
of keeping up connections with foreign revolutionists, and incarcerated. 
It is a dark page among the brilliant pages of the Empress's annals. One 
of the first acts of the Emperor Paul I, at his accession, was to release him. 
He was one of the finest figures of Catherine's reign. 

^ Of no talent, he nevertheless enjoyed a great reputation in his time. 
His " Rossiade " and " Vladimir," epics in the pseudo-classical style, gained 
him the bombastic surname of the " Russian Homer." He was the last 
representative of the old school, which in poetry cared less for inspiration 
than for observance of " rules." 



172 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

circle and the influence it exercised. The historian 
Karamsin, the poet Joukovsky, who says himself that 
his family was the stock of a " literary dynasty " ; Tour- 
genieff, president of the Moscow University, of the 
same family as the great novelist ; his sons, students 
of the Gottingen University, who played a prominent 
part in the first half of the century, were all either 
members of the " Friendly Society " or trained in its 
traditions. All that was prominent in literature dur- 
ing the next forty years stood in connection with this 
Moscovian circle ; the teachers of the lyceum annexed 
to the suburban palace of Tsarskoye Selo near St. 
Petersburg, in 1811, all came from Moscow. Among 
the brilliant names which compose the first set of its 
students, the name of Poushkin is the most brilliant ; ^ 
he had been placed in the lyceum by the above-men- 
tioned Tourgenieff. 

/^ Poushkin's first poem appeared in 18 18, two years 
after Derjavine's death. I do -not think any Euro- 
pean literature offers a similar suddenness of growth. 
It is not that we underrate the educational influence the 
eighteenth century had on Russia's literary development, 
and on the formation of the language ; but you have 
seen yourself how imitative those writers were, how little 
genuine their poetry was, — it seems provoked by outside 
stimulants, not by inner inspirations ; it was adopted, it 
was not our own. Had we no other specimens of poetry 
from that time to this, we should not be able to tell what 
Russian poetry is capable of ; for all that was produced 
by the eighteenth century was not real Russian poetry ; 
it had not yet touched the national soil ; it did so first with 

1 The most prominent among Poushkin's comrades were the poet 
Delvig and Prince Gorchakoff, the future chancellor. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 173 

Poushkin ; and that by which the Russian literature 
so wonderfully differs from others is the fact that the 
moment it touched the soil, the moment poetry became 
genuine, it became sublime, unsurpassable, at least, 
unsurpassed as yet. We do not mean to say that since 
Poushkin Russian literature has declined, but we cer- 
tainly must acknowledge that Russian poetry started 
with its culminating point. 

Before we pass to this great poet, we must speak of 
the two men who created the literary atmosphere of the 
first years of the century. They are the historian Ka- 
ramsin and the poet Joukovsky. 

You remember Europe's literary horizon at the be- 
ginning of the century : — the great revolution had 
thundered away, the streams of blood had dried up, 
the clouds of smoke had been dispersed, a pacifying 
sunshine seemed to promise invariably fine weather. 
The other nations, terrified by the revolutionary tempest 
in France, enjoyed the consciousness of having escaped 
the storm : nothing troubled the serenity of the sky ; 
Bonaparte had not yet become Napoleon, he was not 
yet the conqueror, — he was the tamer, the appeaser. 
The century opened like a radiant summer. A new 
■( literary breeze caressed the languorous hearts ; they 
j abandoned themselves to its charm. Old pseudo-clas- 
sical trumpets and wigs — attributes of decapitated 
royalty — are relegated to the past ; literature will have 
no attributes, no attire, no borrowed garments ; hence- 
forth — naked truth, simplicity, sincerity, nature — noth- 
ing but nature shall have the power of touching people's 
hearts. And the sentimental novel has immense vogue.^ 

1 In fact, the sentimental novel had appeared much earlier : " Clarissa " 
by Richardson, in 1748; the "Sentimental Journey," by Sterne, in 1768; 



174 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Richardson and his innumerable imitators are in all 
hands ; tears of compassion moisten the eyes. But there 
is no bitterness in those tears ; the great poetical sufferers 
of the century had not yet made their appearance, and 
those tears, though abundant, were sweet. The new 
literature had such tender ways, was so sparing ; it 
wounded so profoundly, yet did not hurt. 

Yet in spite of its overdone sentimentalism, the first 
romantic breeze had its importance : it helped literature 
to find the way towards human hearts, it prepared the 
latter for the acceptance of real poetry. Soon they 
were going to be moved and tormented as they had 
never been before. The turbulent genius of him who 
sang the tempests of his homeless soul was soon to 
disturb the limpidity of the sky ; from Britain the cloud 
was advancing laden with thunder. From Weimar, 
where the great German, in the retreat of his Olympic 
indifference, was reviving the antiquity unveiled by Les- 
sing and Winckelmann, the doleful story of love and 
suicide was making its way through Europe. The 
heroic lyre of French poetry was giving forth the first 
harmonies of religious revery under the touch of 
Chateaubriand. Rising from behind the ruins of the 
pseudo-classical theatre, the forgotten image of Shake- 
speare was revealing itself to enchanted souls. Never 
before had European minds been enraptured by such 
a unanimous collaboration of their literary leaders. 
Russia is in the movement. 

The introducers of sentimentalism, and of the first 

the "New Eloise," by Rousseau, in 1761; yet in those days, the facili- 
ties for the diffusion of literature were so inferior to what they are to-day, 
that we must look for a real European influence of a literary style much 
later than the moment when its first specimens appear. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 175 

elements of romanticism into Russian literature, were 
the two above-mentioned writers, — Karamsin and Jou- 
kovsky ; yet we should greatly underrate the Value of the 
former were we to consider him only from this point 
of view. Whatever side of the intellectual life of the 
time we touch, we must speak of Karamsin : historical 
interests, literary taste, patriotic enthusiasm, national 
self-consciousness, have all been furthered and regu- 
lated by his literary activity. Noble, tender-hearted, 
romantic by natural inclination and not by mere literary 
preference, he swayed people's minds not only by the 
qualities of his work, but also by the authority of his 
personal character, the charm of which was such that 
even to-day its influence has not vanished, and seems 
to live on even in the most old-fashioned of his writ- 
ings. 

Born in 1766 (one year after Lomonossov's death), the 
son of a landed proprietor, near Simbirsk on the Volga, 
educated in the enlightening atmosphere of Novikov's 
circle, Karamsin belongs to both centuries ; and as his 
life, so his work is divided into two periods. In the 
eighteenth century he is given exclusively to literary 
interests ; he is at the head of a periodical, he writes 
novels. In the nineteenth century he passes over to 
historical studies ; he becomes a scientist ; he writes his 
•famous "History of the Russian State." The first 
work by which he attracted public attention was his 
" Letters of a Russian Tourist." His great interest in 
foreign literatures, a close acquaintance with the writ- 
ings of contemporary French and German philoso- 
phers, a correspondence carried on with Lavater.^ — 

1 The French text edited in the " Bulletin " of the Academy of Sciences, 
vol. Ixxiii. St. Petersburg, 1893. 



176 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

all this for a long time stimulated his desire of vis- 
iting other countries. In 1789 he went abroad; he 
visited Germany, Switzerland, France, and England. 
Returning to Moscow, he founded a periodical. 

"The Moscow Review" marks an era in the history 
of Russian literary culture. Never yet had the Russian 
public met with such a variety of subjects, with so much 
information of what was going on in foreign litera- 
tures, with such a number of translations of modern 
writers, with such interesting and authoritative critical 
essays. But the chief attraction of the periodical were 
the " Letters of a Russian Tourist," by Karamsin him- 
self.^ For the first time did a Russian traveller's diary 
display, not the usual scenes of picturesque and frivolous 
tourist life, but pictures of literary and scientific Eu- 
rope.'-^ " In Konigsberg he pays a visit to Kant ; in 
Berlin he makes the acquaintance of Nicolai, of the poet 
Platner ; at Weimar he calls on Herder and Wieland ; 
at Zurich he meets Lavater, with whom he had cor- 
responded from Moscow. In Paris he makes the 
acquaintance of Marmontel, Barthelemy, Levesque, and 
others. He visits the places where Voltaire and Rous- 
seau used to live, the scenes where the ' New Eloise ' 
had been written." ^ All this surrounds him with an 
aureole of literary authority which no other writer had 

1 " Travels from Moscow through Prussia, Germany, Switzerland, France, 
and England." 3 vols. London, 1803. French translation. Paris, 1886. 
German translation. 6 vols. Leipzig, 1 799-1 802. 

2 " ' The Letters of a Russian Tourist ' are a great work in spite of all 
their superficiality and exiguity of content : for not only is that great which 
is great in itself, but often that which attains a great result, no matter by 
what means or ways." Belinsky, Works, vol. viii. 

8 A. N. Pypin, " The Beginning of the Nineteenth Century," " Euro- 
pean Messenger," August, 1895 (Russian). 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 177 



possessed before. His romantic aspirations, warmed 
by a close contact with western sentimentalism, produce 
a quite unknown fascination; his supple pen, with 
a wonderful mastery, introduces and combines neolo- 
gisms which multiply the elements of speech and 
archaisms which freshen up the colouring of the vo- 
cabulary ; never before had Russian prose obtained 
similar power over the readers. 

His success attained its pinnacle on the appearance 
of his novel, "Poor Lizzie." A peasant girl from the 
environs of Moscow abandons herself to the promises 
of a young dandy, and when, instead of keeping them, 
he forsakes her and marries, she drowns herself in the 
pond which had been the mirror of their happiest hours. 
This unpretentious story, which makes us smile with its 
exaggerated sweetness, with its unconcealed didacticism, 
with the disproportion between condition and the speech 
of its characters, raised enthusiasm among contempo- 
raries. For the first time people shed tears over a 
Russian book ; for the first time did the touching inci- 
dent of a love-story take place on national ground, 
between people of the race, among every-day circum- 
stances. True, the peasant girl speaks a language 
which she never could have spoken, but it was a Rus- 
sian peasant girl and not a shepherdess of a French 
pastoral ; true, the Simeon Convent which lies near the 
famous pond is represented with "Gothic towers," but 
it was a Russian convent, a real one, which existed near 
Moscow, and people undertook literary pilgrimages to 
dream on the banks of " Lizzie's pond," or to cut their 
names on one of the neighbouring trees.^ " Poor Liz--(r^ 

1 " His novels are false from the poetical point of view; yet they are im- 
portant for having led people's taste towards that kind of literature which 

N 



1 78 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

zie " had shown Hterature its new direction ; it had 
an important influence, though if measured by the 
purely aesthetical standard the novel has scarcely any 
value. -^ 

Strange are the laws of literary reactions. Pseudo- 
classicism dealt with human passions which by their 
nature were comprehensible to everybody ; but it chose 
such unnatural heroes that the passions ceased to inter- 
est us. Sentimental romanticism passed over to common- 
place people ; but it endowed them with such inappro- 
priate feelings that we are just as little touched 'with 
their "naturalness" as we were with the exaggerations 
of the former. The sentimental school in its inno- 
vations had omitted an important point. It looked for 
local colour in everything. Social classes, nationalities, 
customs, dress, were differentiated, but not the human 
feelings. Authors did not consider the variety of 
human souls, but clothed them all in their own feelings. 
Whoever their hero was, to whatever social class or 
country or historical epoch he belonged, they endowed 
him with their own opinions, often with the collective 
creed of their literary school ; their heroes became pro- 
claimers of their ideas. Karamsin could not escape the 
common defect. In his novels it had but an aesthetical 
significance ; it became of greater importance in his his- 
torical work. 

A breath of sentimentalism runs through that won- 



pictures feelings, passions, and events of private, inner life." Belinsky, 
vol. viii. 

1 French translations: "La pauvre Lise." Paris, 1808, and Kazan, 
181 7. Other novels by Karamsin: "Marpha, ou Novgorod conquise," 
translated by J. B. P. Moscow^, 1804. Geneva, 1805. "Le Sensible" 
and " L'indifferent," translated by A. Khvostov. St. Petersburg, 1866. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



179 



derful reconstruction of Russia's past which is pre- 
sented by the twelve volumes of his " History of the 
Russian State." " His views of history were rather 
those of an artist or those of a patriotic moralist than"^ 
those of an investigator," says a critic.^ And yet so 
gigantic is the result of twenty-five years of work, so 
conscientious its historical basis, so solid its texture, 
that we easily forgive it its romantic colouring. 

The impression produced by Karamsin's " History " 
at its appearance was profound and unique. Think of 
the fascination exercised by his preceding writings, and 
you will understand what people felt when that same 
literary charm, captivating their minds and hearts, in- 
troduced them not into a world of fiction, but into the 
reality of their own history. "It was like the Qgg of 
Columbus," says Poushkin. On the 28th of January,. 
1818, Karamsin presented the Emperor Alexander I 
with the first eight volumes, and in twenty-five days 
the edition of thirty thousand copies was exhausted. 
Much has been accomplished in Russian historical 
science since, — no work has produced the same im- 
pression of a " revelation." ^ It was a monumental 
reconstruction of Russian history on a solid basis of 
chronicles and documents ; ^ the " Annotations " reveal 
an almost universal learning in the author who had set 

1 A. N. Pypin, " Beginning of the Nineteenth Century." 

2 "Though rejected by historical and philosophical criticism from the 
number of the works which satisfy the contemporary mind, Karamsin's 
' History ' will remain forever a great work in the history of Russian litera- 
ture in general, and especially in the history of Russian historical lit- 
erature." Belinsky, vol. viii. 1843. 

^ Translations : " Histoire de I'Empire de Russie." 1 1 vols. Paris, 
1819-1826. " Geschichte des Russischen Reiches." Riga, 1820-1827.. 
"Istoria dell' impero di Russia." 8 vols. Venice, 1 820-1 824. 



i8o PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

to work as a poet and at the contact of the archives 
had by degrees grown to be a scientific historian. ^ 

His personality, like his work, has a glory of its own. 
" Karamsin is dear to us," says a critic, "not only by 
that which he accomplished, but by that which he was. 
He was a Russian by feeling, not alone by birth. . . . 
But being a Russian he was a man, and nothing human 
did he consider strange to him ; he was a son of univer- 
sal civilization. . . . He dives into the depths of our 
past, out of forgotten archives he resuscitates for the 
Russian people the memories of its antiquity; but he 
remains a son of his epoch, and he loves the roots of 
the past in the bloom of the present."^ Seldom has a 
writer's personality been surrounded with more defer- 
ence. It has been said that he was the first who " by his 
talent, his culture, and his moral qualities elevated the 
title of author in our fatherland."^ He never accepted 
any official situation ; asked to take a professorship, 
first at the University of Dorpat, later at the University 
of Harkov, he declined both offers ; till the end of his 
days he remained "historiographer by appointment." 
In the spring of 1826, by order of the Emperor Nico- 
las I, a man-of-war was standing in readiness to take the 
invalid historian to Italy ; but he was unable to avail 
himself of this last mark of imperial favour. He died 
on the 22d of May. 

A still greater harmony between individual inclina- 

1 " Had we the misfortune of losing all documental sources, science 
might still continue its way and progress relying upon his work. Another 
history is contained in his ' Annotations,' a history in its own words." Po- 
gadin, Works, vol. ii (Russian). 

- M. Katkoff: leading article in the "Moscow Gazette," 1866, No. 254. 

^ Galahov, " History of Russian Literature," vol. ii. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE i8i 

tions and the literary tendencies of the time is presented 
by his friend, Joukovsky (i 783-1 852), the tender poet 
of romantic melancholy.^ Strange to say, though with 
him Russian poetry made a decided and important step 
forward, he hardly seems to deserve the credit of his 
own work. He seems irresponsible for his fame. So 
much does his poetry appear as the immediate genuine 
result of his nature, that if his critical essays did not 
prove the contrary, we might think he was an uncon- 
scious innovator; whereas he was perfectly aware of 
his significance. In a letter to a friend, he calls him- 
self " father of German romanticism in Russia, and 
poetical tutor of German and English witches and 
devils." And in fact all that was congenial to his 
romantic soul in European literature was absorbed, 
assimilated, and rendered in his ballads. He became 
the channel through which romanticism inundated Rus- 
sian poetry ; he gave the last blow to expiring pseudo- 
classicism, and freed poetry from the folly of sen- 
timentalism.2 But all this was accomplished without 

1 The best biography of Joukovsky : Dr. Carl von Seidlitz, " Wassily 
Andreyevitsch Joukoffsky. Ein russisches Dichterleben." Mitau, 1870 
(and a second edition). 

2 Some critics detect traits of pseudo-classicism in Joukovsky, for instance 
in his poem, " The Bard in the Russian Camp," where Russian soldiers 
appear in the attire of Roman warriors. Yet we are inclined to take it 
less as a survival of pseudo-classicism than as a literary manifestation of the 
so-called " Empire style," which imposed itself on all Europe under Napo- 
leon I. It is the same influence in virtue of which on the medals com- 
memorating the " Fatherland War," Russians are represented as ancient 
Romans. Everything in those days, even church architecture, was under- 
going the influence of that heroic military style. No wonder that romantic 
poetry drew up its mise-en-scene from the same source. An interesting 
example is this of plastic arts influencing literature; it can be traced up 
not only in Joukovsky and in Russia but elsewhere also. 



1 82 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

any fighting on his part ; he did not actively set himself 
against the pseudo-classical current ; he simply let the 
dreamy aspirations of his soul float down the general 
stream of romanticism which was bearing along the 
western literature of the time. Therefore, we might 
call him, at any rate, a passive, if not an unconscious, 
innovator. 

Joukovsky presents an interesting literary figure in 
the sense that his genuine poems and his innumerable 
translations possess an equal value : with his genuine 
poems he implanted romanticism in Russian poetry, 
while for his translations from German and English 
he took only that which stood in immediate relationship 
to his own aspirations.^ This determines the charming 
harmony of his work in which elements of his own 
and foreign poetry combine in the atmosphere of an 
elegiac serenity.^ A constant thought of the vanity of 
our earthly life, the certitude of its continuance beyond 
the grave, a Christian belief in the sacredness of the 
human soul, a vague consciousness of some mystic rela- 
tionship between the animate and inanimate world, — 
all these were new motives in Russian poetry which 
enlarged its horizon. "His romantic muse," says the 
critic Belinsky, "gave soul and heart to Russian poetry; 
she taught it the mystery of suffering, of loss, of mystic 

^ Works of the following poets were translated by Joukovsky : Gray, 
Dryden, Southey, Goldsmith, Moore, Scott, Byron; Goethe, Schiller, Uh- 
land, Geibel, Korner, La Motte-Fouquet, Zedlitz, Halm, Riickert, Grimm, 
Chamisso. Apart from these stand the translations of " Nal and Damay- 
anty " and of the " Odyssey." 

2 " Joukovsky did not merely translate Schiller and other German and 
English poets, — no, he translated romanticism into Russian. . . . This is 
Joukovsky's significance; this is his merit towards Russian literature." 
Belinsky, vol. viii. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 183 

relations, and of anxious strivings towards the myste- 
rious world which has no name, no place, and yet in 
which a young soul feels its sacred native land." 
Poetry appeared with an aureole it never had worn 
before. If you call to mind the words of Trediakovsky, 
who said that poetry was " like fruit and candy on a rich v 
table after heavy dishes " ; if you take into considera- 
tion that Derjavine was praising Catherine the Great 
because 

" Poetry to thee is as pleasant, 

As sweet, agreeable, and useful 

As lemonade in summer time," 

you will realize what people felt when Joukovsky ap- 
peared, and — in those verses of which Gogol used 
to say that they were " immaterial like a vision, and (^ 
floating like the intangible sound of an aeolian harp " 
— proclaimed in sweet .melody that 

" Poetry is God in the holy dreams of earth." ^f 

With Joukovsky poetry in Russia receives its real 
place ; it stands independent above practical life ; its 
limits have been widened, its elements multiplied. It 
is not yet real genuine Russian poetry, — the hour for 
this had not come ; the earth had, indeed, already 
brought forth her poet, but he had not yet spoken. But 
in the meantime, all the elements of a poetry coming 
from abroad had been introduced into its domain ; the 
language had been shaped to sweetest verse, people had 
been shown what poetry was, what poetry meant, hearts 
had vibrated with purest aspirations, ideals had been 
pointed out, the ways were cleared, horizons were wid- 
ened, the heavens stood open, — now the poet might- 



1 84 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

come. And he came, he of whom Belinsky said that 
his poetry was "earth instinct with heaven."^ 

In 1820, a poem appeared, — a fairy-tale in popular 
style; it was entitled " Rouslan and Ludmila," and was 
signed "Alexander Poushkin." The name had not 
been seen before, but literary circles already knew 
who he was. A student of the Lyceum of Tsarskoye 
Selo, for some time past he had been attracting the at- 
tention of poets and writers. It soon became known 
that he had already published in periodicals ; that he 
was but fourteen when his first boyish poem appeared 
in 1813 ; that his were those poems signed with the ini- 
tials " A. P.," in one of which the author, almost a 
child, declared that he would barter the immortality 
of his soul to secure immortality for his songs. Those 
who understood poetry expected great things. Old 
Derjavine, on the edge of the grave, had, as you remem- 
ber, bowed his head before him " who on the school- 
bench had surpassed all other poets"; Joukovsky sub- 
mitted his poems to his criticism, and deliberately erased 
those verses which the boy's wonderful intelligence 
could not comprehend at once. 

"Nothing can be compared," says Belinsky, "to the 
enthusiasm and the indignation raised by Poushkin's 
first poem, 'Rouslan and Ludmila.' ^ Only few crea- 
tions of genius have succeeded in provoking such an 
uproar as this childish poem."^ What a measure of 



1 Belinsky, vol. viii. 

2 German translation by Goring : " Metrische Uebersetzungen aus dem 
Russischen." Moscow, 1833. "Rouslan and Ludmila" was arranged for 
the stage and set to music by M. Glinka, the author of the " Life for the 
Tsar" (d. 1857). 

3 Belinsky, vol. viii. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 185 

the progress presented by Poushkin's career does this 
statement give us ! He inaugurates a new period of 
genuine art, he is the culminating point of Russian 
poetry, and his first poem — greeted by some as a 
sunrise, reviled by others as an insolent attempt 
against established classicism — is mere childishness 
compared to his subsequent work. The magnitude of 
his literary career will appear still more striking if we 
consider its duration. The first chapters of " Rouslan 
and Ludmila" were written in 18 18, — he was nineteen 
years old. On the 27th of January, 1837, he was mor- 
tally wounded in a duel.^ Nineteen years had been 
allotted to him to become what he was, — the glory of a 
country, the summit of a nation's poetry, the implanter 
of the jalons of a future literature, among the great 
poets of the world one of the greatest. And yet, it 
remains a burning wound for a Russian heart, an insult- 
ing cruelty on the part of destiny, to have to consider as 
the work of an accomplished career that which was the 
scant fruit of life cut short. It required several years 
before Russian critics realized the fact and found the 
necessary calm for the forming of a true judgment of 
his career and of his work. Belinsky made the first 
attempt in 1843 at examining Poushkin's work as an 
accomplished cycle ; his famous volume viii, written 
less than ten years after Poushkin's death, ^ is a won- 
derful monument to his memory. Since then, critical 

^ He died three days later, in the house of Prince P. Wolkonsky, 12 
Moyka. A commemorative plate adorns the facade. Poushkin's adver- 
sary, the French Baron, Dantes de Heckeren, died at Sultz (Alsace) on 
the 5th of November, 1895, ^^ the age of eighty-four. 

2 The articles which compose vol. viii of his works appeared in the 
"Fatherland Records" of St. Petersburg, during the years 1 843-1846. 



1 86 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

and biographical researches have never ceased. The 
"Poushkiniana," a catalogue published ten years ago, 
registers over 4500 works from 1827 to 1886.^ 

You cannot form an idea of what a Russian must 
feel when called upon — as I am to-day — to unveil 
before a foreign audience the beauties of Poushkin's 
poetry. An almost religious veneration, augmented by 
the warmth of patriotic feeling, a love which is inspired 
only by the highest and purest specimens of artistic 
expression, prove powerless before the difficulty of 
the task. The difficulty lies not only in the degree 
of beauty, but far more in its quality. Beauty, with 
Poushkin, is, unlike so many other poets, an inde- 
pendent element ; it is not accessory to an idea or an 
opinion or a philosophical system ; it is not an orna- 
ment, not an ingredient, — it is the very substance of 
his poetry. In our days of enforced analyzing and 
reflection, when a writer cannot do less than profess 
a sharply delineated code of moral and political prin- 
ciples, critics may well feel disconcerted at this won- 
derful man who sways our minds and renders himself 
master of our souls without letting himself be classified 
in any philosophical or political school ; people endeav- 
oured to endow him with a creed, with a programme ; 
the attempt was made to render his civic virtues as 
shown in his poems responsible for the impression 
produced by his talent. But people had to give it up, 
their efforts were vain, for Poushkin presented contra- 
dictions, and his political poems were not his best. 
People ought to have known that a man can be as 
simply a poet as a politician or a scientist. Belinsky 

1 Composed by V. Mejoff. Edited by the Imperial Alexander Lyceum. 
St. Petersburg, 1886. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 187 

understood this, — he who said that "the more Poush- 
kin grew as an artist, the more did his individuahty 
vanish and disappear behind the wonderful and glori- 
ous world of his contemplation." ^ All who in poetry 
look for enjoyment of the soul, and not for a statement 
of opinions, will ask nothing more from Poushkin's 
"world of contemplation" than its wonder and its 
glory. The poet himself did not mean to give more. 

" Not for the tumult of the world, 
Not for booty, nor for fighting ; V^ 
We are born for inspiration, 
For sweet melody and prayer." ^ 

And the writer who quoted these verses at the dedica- 
tion of Poushkin's monument in Moscow exclaimed : 
"What other 'usefulness' do you expect.? Are these 
verses not a blessing in themselves }" ^ 

A countryman of yours whom you all revere as an 
authority in questions of art, one day defined in the 
following simple words the moral value of aesthetic 
enjoyments : " By being beautiful the rose makes you 
good." The significance of these words comes back 
to my mind now that I have to speak of the beauty of 
Poushkin's poetry. It presents such a fusion of form 
and content that no critical power can part them ; its 
ethical value is the immediate emanation of its aestheti- 
cal excellence. 

What was the material whence Poushkin abstracted 

1 Belinsky, vol. viii. 

- In another place we have tried to define (very briefly and superficially 
indeed) Poushkin's views on poetry and the poet's vocation. ("The Poet 
in Poushkin's Poetry." " Addresses." Winship & Co., Chicago. Unity 
Publishing Co., 1893.) 

2 Address by J. Aksakov on the 7th of June, iSSo. 



1 88 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

beauty to be incarnated in verse ? You remember what 
other poets had sung of. In the eighteenth century 
they spoke of events, customs, habits ; they pictured 
the outside world ; in the beginning of the nineteenth 
century they sing of feelings, dreams, the inner world 
of man with its vague strivings towards an unknown 
world. Poushkin comes and effects the fusion ; the 
outside world becomes reflected in human feelings, 
the inner world is brought forth from its seclusion, the 
human mind is turned away from its sterile strivings 
towards unattainable regions and restored to earth, for 
earthly beauty is part of universal beauty, and man's 
destiny is not to atrophy himself in dreams, but to exert 
himself in life. Life, — this is what the poet is going 
to sing of, and he is going to grasp it in all its breadth 
of universality, in all its depth of individuality. He 
takes life in the present, and gives social pictures of 
contemporary Russia (among these the famous novel 
entitled "Eugene Oneguin"); he takes life in historical 
distance, and in his drama " Boris Godounoff," which 
recalls to life the "times of confusion," a whole coun- 
try seems to revive ; ^ he takes life in ethnographi- 
cal distance, and with a wonderful versatility and 
power of assimilation he gives specimens of Greek and 
Roman poetry, of oriental songs, Spanish romances, 
mediaeval legends ; he goes to the root of popular life, 
and with the material offered by Russian songs and 
fairy-tales introduces into poetry elements which, till 
then, had been considered base or vulgar, and which 
thenceforth are to become the favourite subject of Rus- 
sian writers. Lastly, he descends into his own soul ; 

1 French translation. " Boris Godounoff" and " Poemes Dramatiques," 
translated by To urgenieff and Viardot. Paris, 1862. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 189 

and here, the deeper he goes, the higher he rises ; the 
more individual he is, the more universal he becomes ; 
the wonderful series of his short lyrical poems is one 
/ of the most precious jewels of man's creation. ^ 

Let us work our way through this life-gallery by ex- 
amining at least a few of his works. " Eugene One- ^ 
guin," a novel in verse, is the most typical of Poushkin's 
creations ; it is typical in a double sense: the subject 
being typical of its time, the poem being representative 
of the poet's personality. Yet before we examine this 
novel we must throw a glance on the society of the time. 

The Russian society of the twenties and thirties of 
this century presents a character which has a charm of 
its own. After the chaotic process of formation under 
' Peter the Great, after the period of awkward adoption 
of the new institutions under his successors, after the 
imitative superficiality of the showy court of Catherine 
the Great, and about the time of Alexander I, as you 
may see from the beautiful social panorama which 
Count Leo Tolstoi pictures in his epic novel, "Wary/' 
and Peace" — the upper classes crystallize themselves 
into a society which, in spite of the deficiencies of 
its scientific instruction, contains examples of high lit- 
erary education. The events of 18 12 and 18 14 — the 
invasion of Napoleon I, his flight, Emperor Alexan- 
der's march at the head of the European coalition, the 
entrance into Paris, Napoleon's fall and Alexander's 
triumph 2 — called forth in Russia, just as in other 

1 A very complete enumeration of Poushkin's works, in the proceedings 
of the Anglo-Russian Literary Society (London), 3d of July. Paper by 
Mr. F. P. Marchant. 

2 On this time, numerous contemporary memoirs, French, Austrian, 
Prussian. 



TQO PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

countries, and perhaps more vigorously, an outburst of 
national feeling. Karamsin's "History" appeared at 
the right moment. The upper classes set themselves 
to study their people and its language. By degrees 
French speech, which was not only the test of good 
breeding, but for a long time had been considered the 
only agent of proper education,^ lost its exclusive au- 
thority ; elements of native life emerged to the surface ; 
people eagerly set to their study.^ A number of literary 
societies arose, and filled the air with discussions on the 
respective merits of the old and the new style in poetry. 
Karamsin's reform of the literary style had raised in- 
dignation among the elder generation.^ Poushkin, with 
his youthful enthusiasm, appeared to it still more disre- 
spectful. The younger men, who called themselves the 
" Karamsinians," joined together and formed the well- 
known society called "Arzamas."* The best literary 
forces of the time — Joukovsky, Batioushkov,° Poushkin, 

1 Even Poushkin, that artist in the Russian language, was writing to 
a friend : " Je vous parlerai la langue de I'Europe, elle m'est plus fami- 
liere" (letter to Chaddayev, 1820). 

^ Poushkin in his country place wrote down popular songs which he 
picked up from peasants and from his old nurse, Arina Rodionovna, to 
whom Russian literature is indebted for having initiated the poet into the 
treasures of our folk-lore. " Before dinner," he writes to his brother, " I 
work, after dinner I ride, in the evening I listen to fairy-tales, and thus 
fill up the gaps of my pitiful education." 

^ In the polemics of Karamsin with Shishkoff, the leader of the parti- 
sans of the " classical style," we may look for the first differentiation of 
the two currents which later accentuated themselves as Slavophilism and 
"Westernism." 

* The name of a town in the province of Nijni Novgorod. 

^ 1787-1855. A poet who composed chiefly in the style of the antique 
anthology (comparable to Parny). With Joukovsky he shares the honour 
of being the immediate predecessor of Poushkin. Had he not been fol- 
lowed by the latter, his diction would have remained for a long time 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 191 

Prince Viazemsky/ Ouvarov^ — were members of the 
"Arzamas." Society was captivated by literary inter- 
1/ ests. Joukovsky, presented at court by Ouvarov, was 
appointed lecturer to the Empress.^ The gatherings 
in the "Pavilion des Roses" at her summer residence 
of Pavlovsk were famous in those days."^ 

Such were the centres from which literary tastes 
radiated. We must say to the honour of the leading 
class at this time that not only did it take an interest 
in literature, but it supplied nearly all the poets and 
writers ; in later times literary interests, as they spread, 
seem to have somewhat abandoned the court, but at 
the beginning of the century the Russian aristocracy 
presented perhaps a unique case in the history of litera- 
ture — it actually made Russian literature. Poushkin 
belonged to this class, and his literary career began 
in the atmosphere we have just described. Yet in 

unrivalled. Poushkin considered that Batioushkov was for the Russian 
language what Petrarch was for the Italian. (His brilliant career was 
interrupted by a mental disease in 1822.) 

1 1 792-1878. Satirist and critic. Under Secretary of Public Education. 

- Minister of Public Education from 1833 to 1849. 

^ The dowager Empress Maria Theodorovna (Princess of Wiirtem- 
berg), widow of Paul I, daughter-in-law of Catherine the Great, mother 
of Alexander I and Nicholas I; founder of numerous educational and 
charitable institutions which, after her death, were united under a special 
ministry known as Department of the Institutions of the Empress Mary. 
See Pr. S. Wolkonsky, "Higher Education of Women in Russia." ("Ad- 
dresses." Winship & Co., Chicago. Unity Publishing Co.) 

* A favourite at these gatherings was the popular " Grandpa Kryloff," 
the well-known fabulist (1768-1844). No Russian poet has obtained as 
many translations as Kryloff. His works exist in twenty languages (a// 
Indo-European, many oriental, and several Semitic) ; there are seventy- 
two French, thirty-two Italian, twelve English translations ; the best among 
the latter ones, by M. Harrison, " Kryloff 's Original Fables." London, 
1884. 



192 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

his "Eugene Oneguin" Poushkin does not introduce us 
into any of these centres; he moves in their neighbour- 
hood ; he does not picture intellectual or literary ex- 
ceptions ; he takes the frivolous, average, impersonal 
society, the great anonymous crowd of balls, theatres, 
concerts, and other social gatherings, in the monotony 
of which people look for remedy against the weariness 
of indolence and leisure. 

Oneguin, the chief personage of the novel, is a com- 
monplace man, but therefore all the more interesting 
— the less exceptional an individual the more repre- 
sentative he is. Poushkin's hero is representative of 
the poet's generation. Trained by a French tutor, 
he has received the varnish of learning, — just what 
is necessary for drawing-rooms, — excellent French, 
anecdotic history "from Romulus up to date," good 
manners, dancing, a touch of Latin, — and he was 
accomplished. After all, as the author says : — 

a We've all been taught in childhood 
Just anything and anyhow ; 
Thus to amaze with education 
Is no hard problem now." 

Thrown into the whirlwind of Petersburg life, the 
young dandy soon feels bored with the fastidious pleas- 
ures of the world. At this psychological moment the 
inheritance left by an uncle calls him to the country. 
Petersburg with its palaces, the Neva with its granite 
quays, theatres, restaurants, actresses, and dancers, van- 
ish away, — Russian country in all its virgin poetry un- 
rolls the green horizons of its prairies and forests. 

By his neighbour Lensky, a youth just returned from 
the University of Gottingen, an enthusiastic admirer of 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 193 

Schiller, and himself a poet, Oneguin is introduced into 
the house of old Mrs. Larin and her two daughters — 
Tatiana and Olga. The younger one is betrothed to 
Lensky; she is a cheerfully fresh and healthy girl, 
but uninteresting. Quite different is the elder sister; 
fond of reverie, she prefers nature's solitude to people's 
company, 

" And on her balcony she often 
Anticipates the dawning day." 

With some French volume on her knees, Tatiana spends 
hours in the garden, for 

" Romantic dreams were her companions 
From earliest days of lullabies." 

Oneguin appears and becomes the master of Tatiana's 
dreams. The poor girl does not withstand the impetus 
of the passion which invades her, and forgetting all the 
precepts of her education, she writes a letter to Oneguin 
which is full of sincerity and poetry. The dandy, satu- 
rated with the love adventures of drawing-rooms and 
theatres which he has experienced in Petersburg, re- 
gards the confession of the provincial girl as a nui- 
sance. He mentally prepares his answer, and after a 
decent lapse of time he calls at his neighbours' ; he 
finds Tatiana in the garden. In a long sermon, which 
is a masterpiece of selfishness draped in abnegation, 
he pours a flood of cold philosophy on her glowing 
love, and rejects a happiness of which he professes to 
consider himself unworthy. In the meantime, the wed- 
ding day of Olga and Lensky is approaching. But 
Oneguin, tortured with spleen, dissatisfied with others 
and with himself, finds a cruel pleasure in destroying 



194 PICTURES OF RUSSIx\N HISTORY 

the happiness of the lovers. One day, in a fit of bad 
humour, he strikes up a quarrel with Lensky, and pro- 
vokes him to a duel. The young poet falls. 

Years have passed ; years of discontent and restless 
wanderings for Oneguin. We are again at St. Peters- 
burg. In the dazzling scenes of a brilliant ball the 
high life of the capital displays itself before our eyes. 
Oneguin is among the crowd, as always — indifferent 
and bored. All at once he is struck as by a vision ; he 
stands petrified ; he does not trust his eyes ! " Do tell 
me," he asks Prince Grenim, the tall and handsome 
general — " Do tell me, Prince, who is that lady in the 
crimson turban, who is talking to the ambassador of 
Spain.?" The Prince gazes at him with amazement, 
and introduces him to his wife. It is she, Tatiana 
Larin ; they had met in Moscow, two years before. 

This time Oneguin falls in love. The timid girl who 
looked so insignificant in her homely provincialism, now, 
since she is on the same social level as he, rises with all 
her moral superiority. He writes a letter ; his desper- 
ate cry of passion is left without an answer ; he writes 
another letter, a third one, always with no result. After 
several months of torment, on one forenoon he finally 
decides to call at her house. The ante-chamber is 
empty ; he goes further — nobody in the drawing-room ; 
he opens one door more ; pale and weary in her morn- 
ing dress, the princess is weeping over a letter. 

" Who would have not in this brief moment 
Her silent suffering divined, 
And not discovered in the peeress 
Poor Tania ^ of the former days ! " 

1 Diminutive of Tatiana. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 195 

He falls at her knees, he grasps her hand, — he 
presses it to his lips. She does not prevent him. 
For a while they remain so, and then : — 

" ' Enough,' she says at last ; ' arise, 
I must explain myself. Oneguin, 
Do you remember still the day 
When in the garden, in that alley 
We met, and when so very humbly 
I listened to your sermoning? 
To-day my turn has come.' " 

Nothing can give an idea of the beauty of Tatiana's 
answer. In a retrospective glance the story of her 
love, as it unfolded itself in the loneliness of the coun- 
try, is disclosed to Oneguin's eyes ; Tatiana's heart is 
torn by the love of him who rejected her in those 
days, and the 'scorn of him who persecutes her with a 
love she cannot accept. 

" ^ And yet, so near was happiness. 
So possible! ' " 

she exclaims. Her last words fall like hammer-strokes 
on his heart. 

" ' I love you, — feigning would be useless, — 
But now, Oneguin, I am another's ; 
And will be true to him for life.' " 

She leaves the room. Oneguin stands thunderstruck. 
But spurs resound behind the door, Tatiana's husband 
enters. 

At this wretched moment of his life, the poet aban- 
dons his hero. 

Such are the pictures of life which unwind them- 
selves in the eight cantos of fluent iambic verse. 



196 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

What can render the charm which floats over this 
simple story? We even cannot use comparison. ^ No 
other Hterature possesses anything of the kind. In 
some particulars the poem may be compared with 
Byron's " Don Juan," but only in its exterior forms : 
the same short strophes, the same rapidity, the same 
frequent digressions, and the same constant presence 
of the author's personality. Yet, how different this 
personality from that of his British contemporary ! ^ 
Not a drop of bitterness, — he is limpid; the poetical 
prism through which he contemplates reality is of 
purest crystal, uncoloured. And what does it not re- 
fract ! This man who was our greatest romanticist 
■was at the same time our first realist; his poetry 
shrinks from no detail. But it is never raw life he 
gives us, it is always picinres of life — real, not embel- 
lished, yet refracted life — transfigured by art. He 
makes us love nature through his poetry, and by con- 
templating nature we love his poetry which has em- 
bodied it. What has it not incorporated ! — 

Petersburg ! The austere beauty of its winter scen- 
ery,; Petersburg, with the romantic charm of its "white 
nights" in the spring, when the sky never darkens, 
and "the dawn hastens to relieve the evening glow 
granting the night but half an hour " ; Petersburg, 
with its monuments, with its ■ history ; Peter the Great 

1 Among the translations known to us the German by Bodenstedt is the 
least unsatisfactory, though much inferior to his translation of Lermontov's 
poems. (" Poetische Werke aus dem Russischen iibersetzt," 3 B. Berlin, 
1854-1855.) English translation by Lieut.-Col. Spalding, 1881. 

2 Poushkin in his younger years had undergone the contagion of the 
Byronic epidemy. Later he judged the British poet severel)'. " Ce 
Byron n'a jamais congu qu'un seul caractere — c'est le sien." (Letter to 
Rayevsky, 1825.) 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 197 

standing on the swampy desert shores of newly con- 
quered Neva, and foreseeing the future city of granite, 
the seaport alive with ships, and the festal sight of their 
medley of flags. 

Moscow! The sunny air of its Sunday mornings 
filled with the ringing of its church and cathedral 
bells, the busy monotony of its interminable streets, 
the pride of the "golden-headed" Kremlin, the sombre 
figure of Napoleon expecting to see the city " kneeling 
at his feet," — and the city answering with flames. 

And the pictures of society ! The ball at Mrs. 
Larin's country house. The types, — what portraits 
with a few strokes are even the secondary characters ! 
Tatiana's old nurse, that peasant servant who in her 
humble condition reveals treasures of devotion. The 
scene, when Tatiana, in the torture of a sleepless night, 
questions her on the days of her youth, whether she 
had loved, and how she married ; the agony of the 
poor young soul who for the first time realizes that 
she loves, the trouble of the old woman who thinks 
the child is ill, the silence in the sleeping house, the 
whisper of the two sitting on the bed, the oppressing 
heat of the summer night, and the cold splendour of 
the "inspiring moon," — makes one of the finest pages 
of all literature. 

The descriptions of nature, the country scenery, the 
times of the year, above all, autumn! What can render 
the charm of all this, and the irresistible contagion of 
life which takes hold of you and makes you vibrate 
with the poet .'' For the poet is omnipresent in what- 
ever he describes, infused in every word ; discreet, in 
the background, never didactic, yet always there, his 
overflowing soul fills everything; the reader is never 



ipS PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

left alone, he is made the confidant of the poet's joys 
and sorrows, the companion of his humour and wit. 
And this companionship is so charming, that when we 
get to the end of the novel we do not know whether 
we regret more to have to close the book, or to have 
to part with the author. And the poet is aware of his 
charm, he is conscious of the part he plays in the fas- 
cination produced by his work. Nothing can be more 
touching than the concluding words, in which he takes 
leave of the reader, except, perhaps, the lines which 
follow them, and in which he takes leave of his work 
and his characters. 

" Farewell, farewell, my strange companion, 
And thou, O vision of my heart! 
Farewell, my insignificant. 
Yet constant, vital work! I've known 
With you all that is dear to poets : 
Oblivion of worldly tempests 
In sweet companionship of friends. 
Oh, many, many days have vanished 
Since young Tatiana and Oneguin 
Confusedly in dreamy distance 
Did first appear before my soul, 
And the outlines of this story 
Through the enchanting crystal prism 
I distinctly yet discerned. 
But those, to whom in friendly meetings 
I used to read its early verse, — 
Some are dispersed, some are no more, 
As Sadi said, in times of yore ! " 

We also will take leave of Oneguin that we may pass 
on to Poushkin's lyrical poems.^ 

1 " Eugene Oneguin " has been arranged for the stage and set to music 
by P. Tschaikovsky. It is one of the most poetical creations of the re- 
gretted composer (d. 1893). 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 199 

It would be difficult to state to what feeling in Poush- 
kin's lyrics the poet gives preference. Love or friend- 
ship, sorrow or joy, wit and laughter or tears and pain, 
— you cannot say which is the poet's favourite, for he 
is equally excellent in all. In his artistic contemplation 
of life, human happiness and human misery, as objects 
of poetry, are of such equal importance to him, that 
not only does he describe them equally well, but never 
do they appear single in his verse ; as life itself, so the 
different feelings in life are complex. Distress is never 
left without a consoling beam of hope ; joy goes never 
without a warning, and a vague presentiment of death 
floats through his gayest poems. His joys are sad, 
his sorrows are transitory, but equally full and pro- 
found. Pouring rain with brilliant sunshine, such is 
his poetry. I do not think it is exaggerating if I say 
that, compared to Poushkin, other lyrical poets appear 
one-sided. This complexity of feeling with a total ab- 
sence of any predominating element is what produces 
that tranquillizing impression we gather from Poush- 
kin's work as a whole. The wonderful harmony of 
his poetry comes from the fact that all its elements 
are rooted in the human soul ; nothing outside, noth- 
ing supernatural, nothing beyond the reach of compre- 
hension, no sterile strivings in ideal regions. Whereas 
so many other poets divert the energies of our soul by 
making them deviate into a world of dreams, with 
Poushkin they are confined to real life ; the human soul 
finds its joys, as well as the remedies against its pains, 
in its own substance, and not in trying to escape from 
its own self. 

We shall now better understand Belinsky's expres- 
sion : " Earth imbued with heaven." As sorrow is never 



^ 



200 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

without hope, joy never without regret, so earth has no 
value without heaven ; and so is heaven to us mortals, 
if taken apart from earth, like an ideal without the 
means of realizing it. Only through their earthly incor- 
poration do our ideal strivings acquire real value. What 
would remain of them were we to overlook earth in con- 
templating heaven .-' What would remain of the idea of 
a statue did the marble fall into dust ? Like faith with- 
out works, so is the ideal sterile without matter. Earthly 
life is matter of heavenly life. We want earth in order 
to obtain heaven ; we should destroy our heaven did we 
not love our earth. Therefore, a healthy, a vigorous, 
a vital poetry is Poushkin's. " It is not a poetical lie 
which inflames imagination," says Belinsky, "not one 
of those lies which make man hostile at his first encoun- 
ter with reality, and exhausts his forces in early useless 
struggle." ^ No better book indeed can be put into the 
hands of youth ; it furthers a simultaneous develop- 
ment, a harmonious growth of feeling, thought, and 
aspirations. 

One more word on Poushkin's language. No idea 
of its magic fascination can be given by translation or 
comparison. It is the finest and yet the most natural 
Russian verse. The best of his lyric poems, those 
which sound like pure music, are like the simplest 
spoken speech if we consider the words apart from 
their phonetic and inner charm. You know how an 
index page of a music book looks. Each musical piece 
is represented by its first bars ; so appears to me the 
index page of Poushkin's lyric poems. Most of them 
have no title; each is noted by its first line, and each of 
these lines is like the beginning of a beautiful melody. 

^ Vol. viii. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



Among these treasures let me pick out one poem, not 
to be regarded as a specimen of melody, of course, in 
its defective English transcription, but in order to give 
you at least a feeble touch of the great poet's soul. 

" I loved you ; though my love has in my bosom 
Perchance not died away completely yet ; 
Still, let it not disturb you any longer, — 
I promise you shall not be made to grieve. 

" I loved you hopelessly, I loved in silence, 
By shyness, then by jealousy oppressed \ 
I loved withal so tenderly, so truly, 
As, God grant, you be by others loved." 

We must take leave of Poushkin's poetry now. We 
leave it with the sad consciousness of the insufficiency 
of our analysis, for Poushkin's poetry is one of those 
subjects in regard to which the critic feels desperate : 
however conscientious his analysis, it will always look 
as if he had spoken, not so much of the poet, as of 
his own admiration. We have endeavoured to expose 
the reasons of the deep veneration we profess towards 
Poushkin ; whether successful or not, to those who 
would suspect us of too much enthusiasm, we will 
simply answer that it is not even the hundredth part 
of what we feel.^ 

1 Some translations of Poushkin's prose : " La fiUe du capitaine," trad, 
par L. Viardot. Paris, 1866. "La dame de pique," trad, par Prospere 
Merimee. Brussels, 1852. "Le brigand gentilhomme," trad, de C. de 
Loulay. Paris, 1864. "Novellen," iibersetzt von Troebst. Jena, 1840- 
1848. " Geschichte des Pugatschewschen Aufstandes." Uebersetzt von 
Brandeis. Stuttgart, 1840. " Le faux Pierre III," trad, par le Pr. Aug. 
Galitzin. Paris, 1858. "Russian Romance," by A. S. Poushkin. Trans- 
lation by Mrs. J. Buchon Tefler. London, 1875. "Marie: a Story of 
Russian Love," translated by Marie "Zielinska. McClurg, Chicago. 



202 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Poushkin's national character has often been made 
an object of discussion. In how far is he representa- 
tive ? In how far characteristically Russian ? A man, 
it has been said, who can so perfectly assimilate Greek 
antiquity, romantic Spain, and the legendary Middle 
Ages, belongs to the universe, not to a nation. A 
French critic refuses him all "ethnical" colouring: 
"Does it diminish his greatness," he asks, "if we take 
him from a nation and pass him over to humanity.''"^ 
As if foreseeing this judgment, Belinsky, forty years 
before, had answered it by remarking that a poet who 
is so wonderful in picturing other nationalities, ipso 
facto, cannot but be wonderful in picturing his own 
people.^ And still earlier, four years before Poush- 
kin's death, Gogol was writing : " Those pictures of 
Poushkin's, which are imbued with Russian spirit, can 
be understood only by him to whom Russia is a father- 
land." ^ Thus his national value becomes one of the 
elements of his universal significance. The idea has 
been developed by Dostoyevsky, who qualifies Poushkin 
by a name which I find no other way of rendering than 
by forming a Greek word: "UavdvOpcoTro'i," '^ to signify 
that he combined all human qualities, and therefore 
belonged to all nations; while at the same time his 
very universality appears as a specific national trait.^ 

We think the discussion vain — vain for Russians. 
We will let others decide in how far Poushkin helps to 
the understanding of the Russian character ; that which 



1 Vte E, M. de Vogue, "Le Roman Russe," i8S6. 2 Vol. viii. 

^ "Arabesques." ("A Few Words on Poushkin.") 
* " Vsechelovek," from vess, " all," and chelovek, " man." 
^ Address read at the consecration of Poushkin's monument in Mos- 
cow, 7th of June, 1880. 



{ 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 203 

makes him dear to us is that being a Russian he helped 
the Russians to understand human character. He had 
foreseen this, his national significance, when in his para- 
phrase of Horace's MoiutmcnUini exegi he says : — 

" And to my people's heart shall I be dear forever, 
By having with my lyre stirred feelings good and true." 

But this does not diminish the universal value of him who 
writes : — 

"Not wholly shall I die. Survivor of the body, 
My soul will overcome oblivion in its songs. 
And glorious shall I be as long as under heaven 
Doth breathe and sing one poet's soul." 

Karamsin said that it was "good to write for Rus- 
sians, still better to write for all men." When the 
world shall have learned to read him, the world will 
see that Poushkin wrote for all men. May the day 
come for every one of you. For my part, I sincerely 
hope that the time will come when all that is beautiful 
on earth will be made accessible to everybody; that 
portions of humanity will no longer be deprived of that 
which belongs to humanity for the mere reason of not 
understanding another nation's language. Goethe's 
words that "that which is really excellent distinguishes 
itself through its belonging to all mankind " will then 
be not only a theoretical assertion, but the statement 
of a practical reality. May the time come when we 
shall all meet in those superior regions where human 
genius has founded a fatherland for every man. 



t^ 



<2 



i^f 



LECTURE VII 

(1837-1861) 

An . epoch of youth. Lermontov, — romantic pessimism, 
parallel with Poushkin. Koltzoff, — popular element in poetry. 
Literary and other aristocratism of the time (Nicholas I). 

Gogol. Genesis of the naturalistic school. Poushkin and 
Gogol. Significance of Gogol's appearance. The writer and 
his torment. Gogol's laughter in its different stages. Place 
of the satire in national evolution. 

" The forties." The Moscow university. Belinsky, — his 
influence as critic. Slavophiles and "Westernists." Scien- 
tific studies of national questions. Accession of Alexander II. 



LECTURE VII 

(1837-1861) 

This mortiing, like the spirit of a youth 
That means to be of note, begins betime. 

— Shakespeare. 

IN March, 1837, a few weeks after Poushkin's 
death, Gogol, who then Hved in Rome, wrote to 
a friend : " No more terrible news could I have 
received from Russia. All enjoyment of life, all my 
best enjoyment has vanished with him. Nothing did 
I undertake without his advice. Not a line did I write 
without feeling him at my side. What would he say, 
what would he take notice of, what would he laugh 
at, what would he grant his indestructible eternal ap- 
proval to, — this was the only thing which interested 
me, the only thing which kept up my strength." In 
such terms did the founder of the Russian naturalistic 
school deplore the death of the great romantic poet. ^ 

These words of Gogol are a precious link in the 
chain of Russia's literary development. The two poles 
of artistic contemplation of life, the summits of its ideal- 
istic beauties, and the abysses of its realistic ugliness 
are put side by side; bound by the force of talent, 
consecrated by reciprocal deference, the two opposite 
tendencies flow together into the great literary stream 

207 



2o8 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

which is about to rise and which will reflect all that Rus- 
sian life has to reveal in its yet unexplored horizons. 

With Gogol, we touch the very source of the new 
literary school, of the one which was to attain its full 
development towards the beginning of the sixties, and 
which, through the works of Tourgenieff, Dostoyevsky, 
and Leo Tolstoi, gained for the Russian novel the rank 
it nowadays holds in universal literature. We cannot, 
however, yet pass on to the great prosaist. In speak- 
ing of Poushkin, we ascended to such idealistic heights, 
that we almost forgot the reality of life. In speaking 
of poetry we forgot about the poets; for Poushkin stood 
not alone ; a pleiad of young poets grouped themselves 
round their young leader. 

I Youthfulness, physical as well as moral, is the char- 
acteristic of the period. The spirit of the time fur- 
thered the early blossoming of talents, and never did 
Russian society feel younger than in the first decade 
of our century. Everybody was young. The Emperor 
Alexander I ascended the throne at twenty-three, when, 
as Victor Hugo would have said, "the century was one 
year old." Poushkin revealed himself at nineteen, and 
was killed at thirty-eight. His friend Delvig made him- 
self known in literature at sixteen, and died at thirty- 
three. Gogol was a literary celebrity at twenty-two, 
and attained his culminating point with his famous 
comedy, the "Inspector," five years later. The other 
play which disputes with the "Inspector" the sover- 
eignty over the Russian comic theatre, " Distress from 
too Much Intellect," by Griboyedov, appeared when 
its author was twenty-eight years old (1823).^ Yet the 

^"Gore ot Ouma." Translation by N. Benardaky. London, 1857. 
Two German translations. Reval, 1831; Leipzig, 1853. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 209 

most wonderful of all, the youngest among Poushkin's 
young contemporaries, was Lermontov, who first ap- 
peared in print at the age of twenty-one (1835), and 
was shot in a duel at twenty-seven ; in the course of 
six years he had raised himself to the level of the 
highest poetical fame. In Russian literature his name 
immediately follows that of Poushkin, he does not 
merely continue, he completes his elder contemporary. 
Among those minor poets who surrounded the author 
of " Eugene Oneguin," Lermontov is the only orie 
whose individuality is powerful enough to stand inde- 
pendently, apart from Poushkin ; and whereas such 
gentle and pleasant poets as Delvig, Baratynsky, 
Yasykov, in spite of the charm of their language and 
the excellence of their poetical form, are but satellites 
of the great star, Lermontov nourishes such flames of 
smothered passion in his glowing heart, that he lights 
his own star with its own individual splendour.^ 

We are far from Poushkin's harmony in Lermontov's 
poetry ; earth and heaven are strongly separated, they 
never mingle, and the very impossibility of their fusion 
is what communicates to his verse its peculiar colouring 
of hopeless longing. There is scarcely any poem of 
his which gives an impression of peace, of content ; 
when earth and man are sad or wicked, heaven is beau- 
tiful, but far and doubtful ; when earth is beautiful, it 
is not for him ; while the sun shines for others, he is 
an exile, a stranger ; and yet there is more regret than 
hope in his thought of death. Lermontov's German 
critic, Bodenstedt, cannot conceive how people could 

^ Best translations by Bodenstedt : " Poetischer Nachlass," 2 B. Berlin, 
1852. Of Lermontov's prose: "A Hero of Our Own Times." London, 
1854. " Choix de Nouvelles Russes." Translated by Chopin. Paris, 1853. 
p 



2IO PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

compare him with Poushkin, for just the points in 
which they differ determine the character of their 
respective merits. You remember Poushkin's com- 
plexity, his many-sidedness even in representing one 
f eehng ? Never does he Hnger over it ; when he suffers 
alone, he goes into the crowd ; when he suffers in the 
crowd, he consoles himself in solitude ; there is a smile 
shining behind the most bitter of his tears ; like a vig- 
orous youth conscious of his resources, he shakes his 
trouble off, and seems to say: "Now, enough about 
it, and let us have a glass of sparkling wine." Ler- 
montov refuses all consolation, his wounds are yawning, 
his sorrow stands open. And how deep they are ! As 
if he had had the presentiment of the brevity of his 
earthly career, he seems to have intensified himself by 
condensing in these few years the supply of sensitive- 
ness allotted for a whole life. " Early did I begin," he 
exclaims, "early shall I end." And in the meantime 
he does not spare himself, he gives all he can give ; 
he consumes his heart; a Prometheus of poetry, he "^^ 
becomes his own vulture ; he fans his inner flame, as 
if he wanted his entire soul to pass into poetry, that 
nothing but ashes should remain on the fatal day when 
the leaden ball should transpierce his heart. " Only 
in poetry was Lermontov himself," says the already 
mentioned German critic. Indeed, small of stature, 
uncomely, of an excessive sensitiveness, irritable, and 
susceptible, the young officer of the guards moved in 
the high circles of Petersburg society with a mask of 
scorn, of contempt, gloomy and absent, only now and 
then coming back to reality in a flash of sarcastic jest- 
ing full of bitterness and sting. But the effort to at- 
tain indifference was like a dam which prevented the 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



treasures of the poet's soul from flowing elsewhere 
than in the channel of verse. And the intensity of 
feeling in his poetry is such that it amply compensates 
for the relative uniformity of his mood, while his poeti- 
cal forms, the vestments, if one may say so, in which 
he clothes his feelings, present a wonderful variety. 
His verse is not so strikingly natural as Poushkin's, 
it is not "spoken speech," art makes itself felt; yet he 
has found new metres, and obtained harmonies which 
even Poushkin does not possess. In his poem, the 
"Demon," where the angel of evil, exile from heaven, 
falls in love with a Caucasian girl, the iambic verse of 
"Eugene Oneguin" appears transfigured ; none would 
recognize in the solemn harmony of the " Demon's '^ 
rhythmic texture the familiar, cheerful, and witty verse 
of Poushkin's novel. 

The landscape in which Lermontov's poetry moves 
is, next to the richness of versification, one of its great- 
est charms. The beauty of his landscapes strangely 
contrasts with the sombre colouring of his feelings ; 
his saddest verse is full of sun, of light, of flowers; 
the heavens are of a radiant blue in the songs of 
him who made the most wonderful translation of 
Byron's "My soul is dark." By introducing the sce- 
nery of the Crimea and the Caucasus into their poems, 
Lermontov and Poushkin widened the geographical 
limits of Russian poetry; it sang of the aurora borealis 
in the odes of Lomonossov, it now sings of vineyards, 
cypresses, the azure of skies seen through fragrant 
acacia flowers.^ " Show me one book," says Boden- 

^ Those who cannot help adhering to the prevalent opinion of Russia, 
being a land of everlasting snow and never melting ice, might have their 
ideas modified by the charming book of Vachon, " La Russie au soleil " 



212 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

stedt, "among the mass of thick geographical, histori- 
cal, and other works on the Caucasus, which would 
give one a better and more lively idea of the character 
of those mountains and their inhabitants, than any of 
Lermontov's " Caucasian Poems." 

In this brief account of Lermontov's poetry we have 
dwelt on those sides of it in which it differs from, and 
consequently completes, that of Poushkin ; its' range 
seems relatively limited, yet its aesthetic worth is such 
as to raise Lermontov's name to the level of Poushkin's. 
Their individualities were not commensurable, but the 
excellence of their poetry is equal ; Lermontov is not 
as many-chorded, but if added to Poushkin's lyre, his 
chords would not be out of tune, they would only in- 
troduce into the limpid harmony of his major tritone 
the melancholy of minor tones, and the hopeless bit- 
terness of dissonances longing for resolution. 

We must now say a few words on another poet of the 
thirties — Koltzoff (1809-1842). By introducing the 
elements of popular poetry into literature, he won a rank 
and glory of his own. Free of any literary influence, 
whether European or Russian, Koltzoff was altogether 
a self-made poet. Son of a merchant of Voronej, 
he had been taught only what was necessary for his 
father's trade, but a fanatical love for books, and espe- 
cially for poetry, gave him no rest ; the works of Jou- 
kovsky, Poushkin, Delvig, and others fell into his 
hands, and he also began to write. He did not — like 
others of the same pleiad — write much in his short 
career, — from 1834 till 1842. He died early, at thirty- 
three, yet his work is important. He was the first who 

(Paris, 1886), if the descriptions Gogol and Tourgenieff give of Russian 
summers do not seem eloquent or reliable enough. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



introduced popular speech into poetry ; the first who 
made the peasant's language an instrument of art ; 
who took the reality of the peasant's life as an object 
of fiction. With Koltzoff the peasant's soul breathes 
and sings in the highest regions of artistic creation ; '^ 
the place is given to it which it is going to keep 
throughout the subsequent development of Russian lit- 
erature. Koltzoff has had many followers in poetry, 
but none of them has his charm of genuineness, his 
almost unconscious freshness. Nikitin ^ was much more 
literary, and mixed unaesthetic town-elements with rural 
scenes. Nekrassov,^ even in his warmest poems of 
this style, remains an outsider, an observer. He speaks 
on behalf of the peasant ; he constitutes himself his 
solicitor, whereas with Koltzoff it is the peasant him- 
self who speaks through the poet. His pains, his joy, 
his love, all the events of his uncomplicated life in its 
continuous dependence upon earth and weather, appear 
in beautiful verse, which seems as naturally their ex- 
pression as the odour is the natural emanation of the 
flower.^ 

Koltzoff is interesting in another sense. He is the 
first writer who does not belong to the aristocratic 
circles of St. Petersburg. All the writers of whom 
we have spoken, from Karamsin and Joukovsky on, 
belonged to that class ; this had its influence on the gen- 
eral position of literary work and literature in society. 
Madame de Stael was not so wrong when she said that 
"in Russia a few noblemen are occupied with litera-. 
ture."* Poets and writers formed a sort of fellowship 

1 1824-1861. 2 1821-1877. 

3 On Koltzoff: W. R. S. Ralston, in Fortnightly Review, Sept. 15, 
1866. * " Dix annees d'exil." 



214 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

with an Olympian exclusiveness, which had to be 
broken down by anyone who intended to devote himself 
to literature ; there was no career possible without the 
consecration and recognition on the part of those 
who already had been recognized and consecrated. 
Koltzoff, in his remote provincial town, felt the attrac- 
tion of the Olympian summits. Only after his visit 
to Petersburg, and his personal acquaintance with 
Poushkin and others, did the really valuable period of 
his career begin. But had he begun earlier, he would 
not have been able in these days to make his way with- 
out leaving his native town.^ Aristocratism is the mark 
of the time, and not only in literature. 

After the year 1825 we are no longer in the reign of 
Alexander I. The enlightened grandson of Catherine 
the Great, trained by the Swiss Laharpe in the atmos- 
phere of French philosophy, had, as time went on, 
changed his ideas. After the wonderful epoch of 
18 12-18 14, which brought forth the fall of Napoleon 
and the reintegration of Europe in its political fron- 
tiers ; after the triumphs of the coalition and the splen- 
dours of the congresses,^ Alexander gradually entered 
into a strain of abstract romantic religiousness, and 
ended his days plunged in mysticism under the influ- 
ence of the well-known M""*' Kriidener,^ and surrounded 

1 Nikitin seems to be the first poet who obtained public recognition 
without having ever moved from his birthplace, which by the way is the 
town of Voronej, where Koltzoff, also, was born (1806). 

2 On the Congress of Vienna : C'^ d'Angeberg, " Le Congres de Vienne 
et les traites de 1815." Paris, 1864. 4 vols. C^^ de la Garde, " Fetes et 
souvenirs du Congres de Vienne." Brussels, 1843. On the epoch in 
general : Pertz, " Leben des Ministers Freiherrn von Stein." 

3 See Ch. Eynard, "Vie de M"^e. de Kriidener." 2 vols. Paris, 1849. 
M. Buhler, "Frau von Kruedener auf dem Rappenhof, zur Heilbron und 
Schluchtern." 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 215 

with champions, either of brutal militarism, Hke Count 
Arakcheyev, or of obscurantistic mistrust, like Shish- 
koff. In 1825 he was succeeded by his brother Nicho- 
las I. The change of reign was marked by the outburst 
of the so-called " December Revolution." The best 
intellectual forces of the time took part in a movement, 
the chief aim of which was the emancipation of the 
serfs. But the time for this had not come yet, and 
those who used violence were suppressed by force. ^ 

The reign of the Emperor Nicholas I belongs to that 
period of European history when concern for exterior 
politics decidedly overweighed interior interests.^ The 
sovereigns of Europe seemed exclusively occupied in 
securing terms of good harmony among themselves, 
not because it was considered, as it is in our days, 
a condition of inner prosperity, but because it was a 
warrant of inner security. Sovereigns could not do 
without solidarity of action. They had cleared them- 
selves from the intrusion of the Caesar, but his memory 
was still alive ; and the revolutionary spirit, fermenting 
all over the continent, burst out every now and then. 
Therefore, ties of dynastic solidarity were drawn as 
close as possible. On the "basis of the Holy Alliance, 
in the programme of which the romantic idealism of 
Alexander I had been prudently counterbalanced by 
the indiscriminating practicality of the Austrian prime 
minister, Metternich, the sovereigns of this time also 
presented a sort of fellowship, the members of which, 

1 Count Leo Tolstoi took this epoch as subject for his novel, "The 
Decembrists," which unfortunately he did not carry further than three 
chapters. 

2 On Nicholas I : P. Lacroix, " Histoire de Nicolas I." 8 vols. Paris, 
1S6;. 



2i6 . PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

in spite of the differences of their position in their 
respective countries, were all occupied with one and 
the same idea — the preservation of the integrity of 
the legitimate European status quo. It was not des- 
tined to last long. The intrusion of another Napo- 
leon was to trouble the harmony, and the trials of 
the Crimean War in 1853 were to prove that inner 
prosperity was at least as important a condition of a 
country's existence as exterior prestige. But in the 
thirties and forties, when European governments formed 
something like a cosmopolitan aristocratic association, 
all that was of inner interest, all that was purely na- 
tional, seemed to possess a flavour of democracy which 
was not fitted to please. ^ 

Russian literature in the person of its authors had 
broken through the aristocratic exclusiveness of the 
upper classes. Though our writers had taken Russian 
life as an object of fiction, yet it was not life in its whole 
volume, it was visible life ; they showed the front of it, 
they did not show the back; they made a picture, not a 
statue ; you could not go round it. They had watched 
life in its results, not in its formation ; they had busied 
themselves with flowers, not with roots ; they had not 
yet touched the vital interests of the different social 
classes, their conditions, their relations ; nor had they 
treated of those individual springs by which the vast 
mechanism of government operated upon society. Kolt- 
zoff, as we have seen, was the first representative of a 
new class among the writers ; the first who introduced 
new elements into literature, but his work was not 
important enough to mark a new epoch ; this honour 
belongs to another. 

In the spring of 183 1, a youth of twenty-two was 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 217 

introduced to Poushkin ; he had come from Little Rus- 
sia two years before ; he had entered as a clerk one of 
the departments of St. Petersburg, and was trying his 
pen in poetry and prose. This was the future author 
of " Taras Boulba" and the "Inspector." Gogol was 
received by the literary circles with open arms. The 
humble clerk who spent his forenoons in writing official 
papers at his department, and his afternoons in giving 
lessons in history, was seen in the evenings in the fash- 
ionable literary drawing-rooms of Prince Odoyevsky, of 
Prince Viazemsky, of the Empress's ^ maid-of-honour, the 
attractive and intelligent Mademoiselle Rossett.^ In 
this atmosphere, under the encouraging influence of 
Joukovsky and Poushkin, did his talent ripen. Gogol 
was the last among the young writers who^ belonged to 
Poushkin's circle ; Koltzoff, who had been to St. Peters- 
burg only for a short visit in 1835 (and again, after 
Poushkin's death, in 1840), had been received into, but 
did not belong to, the circle. 

With Gogol, literature in Russia ceased to be a 
monopoly of the drawing-room, and became the prop- 
erty of the nation ; and it is from the time of Gogol on 
that Russian literature, ceasing to be the property of a 
single country, has become a possession of the world. 

We have reached the period when Russian litera- 
ture is known to everybody, or at any rate can be 
studied by anyone who may feel interested in it — so 
much has been translated in the last years.^ This in 

1 The Empress Alexandra Theodorovna, wife of Nicholas I, sister of 
William I, Emperor of Germany. 

-Memoirs of her daughter in " Nouvelle Revue." 1885, November 
and December. 

^ Henceforth we shall give no more bibliographical information as to 
translations; it would encumber the pages and almost force out the text. 



2i8 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

some ways facilitates our task. You may easily conceive 
that to run through the literary work of such giants as 
Gogol, Tourgenieff, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoi requires 
a little more time than we have at our disposal. There- / 
fore we shall not examine so much their works as their 
place in the general evolution of Russian thought. We 
will look for their literary genealogy, their relationship 
to one another; we will consider the way they reflected 
or influenced contemporary life, the currents of thought 
of which they are representative. Thus we shall get 
a more or less complete picture of intellectual Russia 
from the end of the thirties till the beginning of the 
sixties ; and at the close of our lectures, though I shall 
not have told you all about the modern writers of 
Russia, yet I shall at least possess the consciousness 
of having set before your eyes some sides of Russia's 
literary life which can hardly be gathered from the 
mere reading of our authors.-^ 

It is believed by some critics that the Russian natu- 
ralistic school, the first representative of which is Gogol, 
had its founder in the person of Poushkin. This judg- 
ment diminishes the merit of the former and changes 
the character of that of the latter. Poushkin had a 
great influence on Gogol. You remember in what 
terms the young novelist deplored the poet's death, 
"All enjoyment of life, all my best enjoyment has 
vanished with him." 

Poushkin brought light and order into the young 
writer's mind ; he gave him the consciousness of his 
power, the tranquillity which is necessary for develop- 
ment of talent, and which it finds only in respect and 

1 On Russian literature in general : Reinholdt, " Geschichte der Russ- 
ischen Literatur." Leipzig and Berlin, 1885. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 219 

acknowledgment by others. All this binds together 
the names of Gogol and Poushkin with indissoluble 
ties. Yet Gogol's dependence on Poushkin has a char- 
acter of personal gratitude, not of literary descent ; the 
poet influenced the novelist, but the novelist's work is 
not derived from the poet's work. The misunderstand- 
ing comes from the fact that Poushkin, as we have seen, 
was the first to have recourse to real life. Yet what a 
difference in the way of treating it ! The poet, however , 
realistic, never forgets to what school he belongs, and 
when he takes real life, it is not for itself, but in order 
to introduce it into romanticism. The novelist goes to ; 
real life and forgets that anything else exists. He 
boldly turns his back to any abstract world of poetry, 
and his beautiful language, the wonderful colours of his 
imagination, become nothing but means which appear 
the more luxuriant the sadder the naked poverty of the 
life he represents. 

Do you wish to know in one word the new element 
introduced by Gogol .'' Before him life had been shown 
in literature. It had been shown in many of its varied 
aspects, and men had been made to feel in books as 
they feel in actual contact with life ; they had felt 
pleased, grieved, proud, disgusted, but never before 
had they felt ashamed of life — this is what Gogol 
made them feel. 

You must call to mind what has been said of the 
aristocratism of the time, to appreciate at its full value 
the importance of Gogol's appearance. Aristocratism 
was the official order of the day. Keeping in the 
movement, the writers got more and more secluded 
in their Olympian contemplation ; no one thought of 
exploring the sad corners where life vegetated in the 



2 20 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

miseries of servitude, roughness, ignorance, and super- 
stition. After the softening breeze of sentimentaHsm, 
after the first blows of Poushkin's realism, society felt 
as if it had acquitted itself of all debts towards reality; 
it had given a look into life out of the enchanting win- 
dow of romanticism ; and now all doors closed again. 
Society was refined, cultured, more European than the 
Europeans themselves, and it relapsed into a feeling 
of rest like one who, having reached the top of the 
mountain, has nowhere else to go. As baggage from 
the valleys, they had taken with them a sort of theo- 
retical love for the lower people, not because they were 
human beings, but because they represented in their 
eyes the living material which embodied the country, — 
the country with its greatness, its power, its European 
prestige ; there was more patriotic selfishness than 
human sympathy in the way the lower people were cared 
for in those days. The system of maintaining the status 
quo carried out in diplomacy was applied to inner con- 
ditions. People were thoroughly persuaded that they 
lived in the best possible world, and indulged in a 
quiet, patriotic self-content. Under such conditions, 
Gogol's laughter suddenly broke out, and lifting the 
curtain from the most sombre corners of life he un- 
veiled the reality in all its nakedness. 

Before we speak of this laughter, let us take a look 
into the author's soul — it will save our explaining many 
things. The following is the famous passage begin- 
ning the seventh chapter of Gogol's " Dead Souls " : — 
r "Happy the traveller who, after a long weary jour- 
ney with its mud and dirt, with its sleepy station- 
keepers, with the tinkling of the bells, with its petty 
accidents, squabblings with coachmen, blacksmiths, 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



and all sorts of rascals, at last beholds the well-known 
roof of his home with its lights near at hand; and 
now he sees the familiar rooms, he hears the joyful 
cry greeting him, the noise and running of the children, 
and then the quiet appeasing speech interrupted with 
glowing kisses, — those kisses full of power to chase all 
memory of grief. Happy he who has a home, alas for 
him who has none ! 

" Happy the writer who, neglecting characters weari- 
some, disagreeable, sad in their reality, deals only with 
such as reveal the highest dignity of man ; the writer 
who, out of the slough of his everyday surroundings, 
has selected the few mere exceptions ; who has not 
once changed the exalted tone of his lyre ; who from 
his height has never descended to his poorer brethren; 
and who, without touching earth, wholly dwells in the 
distant world of his glorified creations. Doubly en- 
viable and beautiful his lot : he feels at home among 
them, and in the meantime, far and loud resounds his 
fame. With inebriating incense he has clouded peo- 
ple's sight; wonderfully has he flattered them; he has 
concealed the sadness of life, he has shown them man 
under a fair aspect. All are applauding and running 
and flying after his triumphant chariot. A great poet 
they call him, the poet of the earth, who soars high 
above all others as does the eagle above all those who 
soar in the heights of heaven. At his mere name young 
ardent hearts palpitate with ecstasy ; responsive tears 
glisten in all eyes. None is equal to him in power. 

" Not such is the lot, and different is the destiny, of the 
writer who has ventured to call to the surface all which 
passes unseen by indifferent eyes ; the dreadful mire 
of petty vanities in which our life is sunk, those cold 



2 22 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

every-day characters that swarm on our painful, weary, 
earthy, road ; the writer who, with the powerful force 
of his inexorable chisel, has dared to expose them in 
their sharp relief. He shall not reap his nation's ap- 
plause, he shall not see the grateful tears and unani- 
mous transport of enraptured souls ; the young girl in 
an outburst of heroic enthusiasm will not fly towards 
him with glowing heart ; to him shall not be given 
the enchantment of hearing cheers roused by his own 
words; and he shall not escape the verdict of the 
contemporary tribunal, — that hypocritical, insensible, 
tribunal which will proclaim as mean and base his 
cherished creations, which will assign him a contempti- 
ble place among the offenders against humanity, which 
will endow him with the qualities of his own person- 
ages, refuse to him heart and soul and the sacred flame 
of talent. For the contemporary tribunal will not ac- 
knowledge that the glasses which disclose the move- 
ments of invisible insects are as wonderful as those 
which reveal the heavens ; for the contemporary tribu- 
nal will not acknowledge that great depth of feeling is 
needed to draw a picture from the slough of life so as 
to make it a masterpiece of creative art ; the contempo- 
rary tribunal will not acknowledge that sublime enrapt- 
ured laughter is equal to sublime lyrical enthusiasm, 
and that an abyss lies between it and the grinnings of 
a clown. No, the contemporary tribunal will not ac- 
knowledge him ; all will turn with insult and reproach 
against the repudiated writer : with no sympathy, no 
response, no interest, as a homeless traveller shall he 
be abandoned in the middle of the road. Harsh is his 
destiny, and bitterly shall he feel his loneliness." 
Everything is contained in this beautiful fragment. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 223 

The loneliness of the man who never knew the joys of 
family life except in days of early childhood ; the pain 
of the satirist who stands alone among the Parnassian 
poets of his time ; the sufferings of him who thinks he 
is misunderstood by contemporaries, and does not real- 
ize that he is anticipating the future; the unrealizable 
dreams of changing his style, and of becoming one of 
those who tune their lyre to "exalted tones"; the inner 
discord of him who shall, in later days, disavow all he 
has written in the days of his glory ; ^ the fluctuation of 
his soul consumed in agonizing struggles between the 
writer and the pietist ; all the torments of that unbal- 
anced life which began in the rural remoteness of Little 
Russia, flourished in the literary drawing-rooms of the 
capital, continued in melancholy wanderings through 
Europe, and, after a disenchanting pilgrimage to Jeru- 
salem, ended in Moscow, atrophied in physical disease 
and mental sterility. 

In 1831, the "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka " ^ 
appeared. " I have been told," writes Poushkin, " that 
when the editor entered the printing-office, he found the 
compositors bursting with laughter. I congratulate the 
public upon a really amusing book." 

Gogol's laughter had several stages. During the 
first years of his stay in Petersburg, among the misty 
streets of the northern town, the flowery prairies of his 
beloved Little Russia lived on in his memory with all 
the radiant luxury of their summers. His descriptions 
of peasant and Cossack life are imbued with a feeling 
of endless devotion, his humour is tender, his jokes 

^ " Selections from the correspondence with friends." 
2 Dikanka is the name of a village in Little Russia, in the province of 
Poltava, belonging to Prince Kochoubey. 



224 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

sparkle on a background of love, his gayety is of an 
almost childish purity — not a drop of bitterness, not a 
single "invisible tear" behind that "visible laughter." 
In the next three years the town element makes irrup- 
tion into his idyllic strain of rural optimism ; muddy 
pavements, dirty apartments, poor clerks, artists and 
writers succumbing in the dumb tragedy of the strug- 
gle for life, invade some of his novels ^ and introduce 
an element of disenchantment into other of his writ- 
ings, where Little Russian life still appears in all ' its 
picturesqueness yet filled with petty every-day details,^ 
or with epic pictures of human sufferings.^ Now, 
tears ooze through his jokes ; bitterness glides into 
his heart — the decomposition of his optimistic visions 
has begun. Soon, beauty will impress him only by 
the outrages it endures from human villany ; the world 
will appear to him in that aspect of degradation, legal- 
ized by the monstrous indifference of modern society, 
into which woman is precipitated by poverty and mis- 
ery. "What has the power of filling us with greater 
compassion," he exclaims, "than to see beauty touched 
by the pestilential breath of corruption." Beauty of life 
by and by fades away, and reveals ulcers and wounds. 
Yet he cannot change his pen ; the man suffers, the 
writer laughs — only with the difference that till then 
he had been writing in order to make people laugh, 
now he writes in order to laugh at them. 

The " Inspector," represented for the first time in 
April, 1836, unfolds a pitiful picture of small govern- 

1 "The Portrait," "The Nevsky Avenue," "The Cloak," and others. 

2 " Old Fashioned Farmers," " The Story about Ivanovich and Ivan 
Nikoforovich," and others. 

3 "Taras Boulba." 



( 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 225 

mental functionaries vegetating in provincial remote- 
ness, and sunk into venality and bribery. The " Dead 
Souls," which appeared in 1842, unrolls the distant hori- 
zons of Russian country life before the emancipation of 
the serfs, with its endless variety of types, in the end- 
less monotony of interests concentrated on material 
gain and provincial gossip. 

"And not a single honest character!" people were 
heard exclaiming as they left the theatre after the 
first performance of the "Inspector." "No," said the 
author, "but there was one honest thing in the play 
during the whole performance — and that honest thing 
was — laughter."^ 

"How is it possible," foreigners sometimes ask, "that 
such a play as the ' Inspector ' should be permitted on 
the stage in Russia.?" The fact that it was permitted 
under the Emperor Nicholas I is astonishing indeed ; 
yet it was by a special order of the Emperor himself, 
who took a personal interest in the play, that the " In- 
spector" was put on the stage. The fact that it has 
never since been taken off the boards astonishes no 
Russian ; the astonishment of foreigners is comprehen- 
sible ; they evidently judge by the pitiless mutilations 
the Russian play had to endure from the scissors of the 
German manager, when, overcoming his hesitations, he 
at last accepted it for the imperial stage in Berlin about 
a year ago.^ 

1 In the " Departure from the Theatre." A critical essay in dramatic 
form, where the author sums up the different opinions of contemporary 
criticism. 

2 " Correspondence from Berhn," 19th of April (in the "New Time " of 
St. Petersburg, 21st of April, 1895), by M. Shabelsky, the translator of 
Gogol's comedy. 

Q 



2 26 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Another remark from the Kps of foreigners is more 
important. " What a picture of Russia one obtains 
from Gogol's ' Inspector ' and ' Dead Souls ' ! How- 
dreadful ! Not a single honest character!" Pardon 
me for being harsh, yet I cannot help calling such a 
judgment a revelation of great lack of literary sense. 
In what country, I will ask you, in what times, and in 
what literature, has a satire ever been accepted as an 
adequate picture of life in its whole extent ? Why 
then, is it because so little is known about Russia, 
that the saddest corners of life are to be taken as an 
average picture ? And is one of the greatest satirists 
of the world, endowed with the most powerful gift of 
abstraction, to be reduced to the level of a simple 
newspaper reporter who merely registers facts ? No, 
let us not abase the writer by underrating the magnify- 
ing power of his insight into the realities of life. And 
let us not traduce a nation for having been the object of 
such a satire ; the very nation which was satirized, pro- 
duced the satirist. The critical literature of a country 
does not lie outside the national soul ; it is an element 
— and a noble element — of its self-consciousness. If a ; 
nation is made responsible for the ugliness of its defi- ,■ 
ciencies, it must be made responsible for the vigour of 1 
its consciousness of them. A great satirist, just as a 
great poet, is a product of a nation's evolution, and 
whatever he uncovers in the depths of human misery, 
his work, as the poet's work, stands to the credit of the 
nation. Only great souls are capable of turning all the 
powers of their intellect against themselves. Only a / 
nation whose soul is steeled for painful struggles of i 
self-improvement, could have turned against itself such 
a venomous sting as the sublime satire of Gogol. ^ 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 227 

With Gogol disappeared the last representative of 
literature who, by his personal relations, gravitated 
toward the past, the last of the youthful pleiad ; the 
names which now are about to dawn, gravitate toward 
the future ; they are to form the second pleiad, whose 
activity chiefly belongs to the sixties, and their last 
representatives in our days are Leo Tolstoi in prose, 
Maykov and Polonsky in poetry.^ 

The decade which lies between Gogol's "Dead Souls" 
and the first appearance of Leo Tolstoi marks an im- 
portant moment in our intellectual life. As the intel- 
lectual tendencies of the time were chiefly accentuated 
from 1840 on, the whole epoch has received the 
appellation of this date. "The forties" in Russia is a 
word which has a charm of its own; it possesses an 
uplifting power which raises one to idealistic regions of 
scientific, literary, and philosophical discussions, some- 
what abstract in their youthful enthusiasm, yet of a 
great practical value because of their sincerity and 
purity of aim. 
1/ The University of Moscow in the thirties had be- 
come the centre of an intense intellectual activity. 
Seldom has a body of professors and students exhib- 
ited such a simultaneous outburst of scientific inter- 
ests. German philosophy becomes the chief object 
of study and discussion. Young minds, inflamed by 
the doctrines of Schelling, were carried away by 
the lectures of Professors Nadejdin,^ Pavlov,^ Shevy- 

1 The chief representatives of the second pleiads of our lyrical poets 
are: Tutchev (d. 1873), Count Alexis Tolstoi (d. 1875), Fet (d. 1892), 
and the yet living Count Koutousov. 

2 Professor of fine arts and archseology. 
^ Professor of physics and agriculture. 



228 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

rioff,^ and Pogodin.^ Around these names spring up 
other names, of those who, yet students, are to be- 
come in the next decade the leaders of Russian 
thought ; those who shall prepare the literary soil 
from which the great writers of the sixties are to 
rise, and who constitute the moral atmosphere of 
the society which, twenty years later, will respond to 
the sovereign call of Emperor Alexander II for the 
emancipation of the serfs. Among these names the 
most important are : Granovsky, the future professor 
of history, who exercised such an influence on his own 
and the next generation that his name became synony- 
mous with an epoch. Belinsky, the future critic whom 
we have so often quoted, especially when speaking 
of Poushkin, and who, it has been said, " constitutes 
the chief channel of our literary and social develop- 
ment in the forties."^ Solovieff, since 1845 professor 
of Russian history at the University of Moscow, one 
of the greatest of historians.* The brothers Aksakov, 

^ Professor of literature. We cited him when speaking of the "Annals," 
and of the "Word about Igor's Fights." A characteristic remark was 
suggested to Goethe ("Kunst und Altertum") by Shevyrioff 's examination 
of the second part of " Faust " : " The Scotchman endeavours to penetrate 
into a work; the French, to understand it; the Russian, to assimilate it. 
Thus Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Ampere, and Mr. Shevyrioff have undesignedly pre- 
sented these various methods of dealing with a work of art or nature." 
A. Barsonkoff, " Life and Works of M. P. Pogodin." 3 vols. St. Peters- 
burg, 1 889- 1 89 1 (Russian). Compare, Goethe to Carlyle, Letter XIV, 
15th June, 1828. ("Correspondence between Goethe and Carlyle," edited 
by C. E. Norton, London, 1887.) 

.^ Professor of history. 

^ A. N. Pypin, " Characteristics of Literary Opinions from the Twen- 
ties to the Forties!" St. Petersburg, 1890 (Russian). 

* His " History of Russia from the Earliest Times" is the capital work 
on the matter. Volume xxix brings it as far as the reign of Catherine the 
Great (1780). 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 229 

the future leaders of the Slavophiles, sons of a well- 
known writer, Serge Aksakov.^ 

All these young people lived in a state of philosophi- 
cal intoxication. After the last years of the thirties, it 
was no longer Schelling but Hegel who was inflaming 
imaginations and unchaining discussion. " In the three 
parts of his ' Logic,' " says a contemporary, " in the 
two of his '^Esthetic,' in his 'Cyclopaedia,' there was 
not one paragraph which had not been conquered at 
the cost of desperate discussion of many a night. Peo- 
ple who were friends parted for weeks because they 
did not agree upon the determination of the ' absolute 
ego,' and its ' existence as such.' The most trifling 
pamphlets published in Berlin, or in any centre of 
German philosophy where Hegel was spoken of, were 
read till they were soiled and worn out." Enthusiasm 
for poetry was not less. " To know Goethe by heart, 
especially the second part of ' Faust,' was as compul- , / 
sory as to wear clothes. The philosophy of music 
stood on the first plane." Their interest in abstrac- 
tions made their idealism almost ridiculous. " A man 
who went out for a walk in the park was going out 
in order to enjoy the pantheistic feeling of unity with 
the cosmos ; if he met a soldier or a loquacious 
woman of the people, the philosopher did not simply 
enter into conversation with them — he determined 
the national substance in its immediate or accidental 

1 1791-1859. His "Family Chronicle" (" Russische Familien Chro- 
nik." 2 B. Leipzig, 1858) is the prototype of the Russian family novel, 
and with his books on fishing and shooting, he gives the first samples of 
the genuine and loving contemplation of nature which afterwards became 
the characteristic feature of Tourgenieff; but, as they bear an autobio- 
graphical character, they have not attained in fiction the rank they might 
occupy for their literary merit, 



230 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

appearance." 1 All this was childish in its exaggeration, 
yet sincere and unselfish. With age came steadiness 
and practical sense; former students became professors, 
enthusiastic idealists, zealous workers of science and 
enlightenment.^ Out of these names let us take the 
one which has been designated as "the chief channel 
of our literary and social development in the forties." 

From the numerous quotations I have given, the 
figure of Belinsky must in some way already have de- 
lineated itself before your minds : you certainly must 
have appreciated the subtlety of his artistic perception, 
the precision of his analysis, the penetrating power of 
his insight, the elevated standard of his aesthetic judg- 
ment. His influence was of incalculable importance; 
we may say that the whole subsequent generation of 
writers, of those who established the universal signifi- 
cance of Russian literature, gathered their aesthetic 
education from Belinsky's works. If we consider the 
importance of those writers on whom he exercised his 
power, — Poushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, — and if we 
remember that he was their contemporary, and conse- 
quently not possessing the privilege of retrospective 
judgment, his insight into the sense of literary events 
and their relationship to life appears almost wonder- 
ful. Never did a theory once held cloud the serenity 
of his appreciation. " Only he who does not care 
for truth has never changed opinion," he used to say. 

1 Quoted by A. N. Pypin, op. cit. 

" One of the first who gave the impulse to the new philosophical move- 
ment, was the young poet Venevitinov (1S05-1827). Extraordinarily 
gifted, he had become a leader in spite of his youth (he died at twenty- 
two). "How could you have let him die?" wrote Poushkin to his 
friends. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 231 

And so true indeed is his appreciation of life and 
art in their reciprocal influence that it really becomes 
hard to decide whether it is advice to contemporary 
writers, or a prophecy on the future Russian literature, 
when he says : " The politico-economist, arming him- 
self with statistics, impresses the minds of his readers 
or listeners and proves that the conditions of a social 
class have improved or declined for one reason or an- 
other. The poet impresses the reader's imagination 
with his brilliant pictures of actuality, and sJiozvs in a 
true reproduction that the conditions of a social class 
have improved or become worse for one reason or 
another. The scientist proves, the poet shows, and 
both persuade; the one by way of logical arguments, 
the other by way of images. Yet the former is heard 
and understood by a few, the latter by all." 

Belinsky's activity as a publicist was of great im- 
portance. "On him," says an above-quoted writer, 
"were concentrated the warm symipathy of the new 
generations, the most violent hatred of the old literary 
parties, and the antipathy of the new school hostile to 
the 'western' tendency." What is this "new school," 
and what this "western tendency".'' A contemporary 
thus characterizes them : "In these days the Moscovite 
scientists and writers were divided into two groups: the 
so-called ' Westernists,' and the so-called Slavophiles. V' 
The former, the more numerous, gathered round the 
young professors newly returned home from abroad, 
and presented a reflection of moderate Hegelianism. 
The latter were elaborating an orthodox Russian sys- 
tem." ^ That which the contemporary calls "two 

1 G. Samarin (d. 1876), himself a Slavophile; later, a member of the 
commission which elaborated the plans for the emancipation of the serfs. 



232 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

groups," soon became two camps, and Belinsky, when 
hostilities grew sharp, became the most zealous cham- 
pion of the so-called " Westernism." The Westernists 
were no regular party : they were, however, treated as 
such by their adversaries, the Slavophiles, from whom 
they also received their appellation. As they had no 
characteristic features which distinguished them from 
the champions of culture in any country, we will give 
a sketch of the adverse party, and thus exhibit the 
differences. 

We mentioned some characteristic points of the 
Slavophiles' doctrine, if you remember, when speaking 
of the different judgments of Peter the Great. You 
remember that the reform was considered by this party 
as a violent interference with the normal development 
of the country, as a deviation leading to a pernicious 
imitation of Western Europe. Such a view of one of 
the greatest moments of Russian history was the natu- 
ral consequence of a whole doctrinal system. In spite 
of the national exclusiveness to which it leads, in spite 
of the artistic intolerance into which it degenerated 
in later days, in spite of the self-confident " spread- 
eagle-ism " as you would say, which is its frequent com- 
panion. Slavophilism rests upon a profoundly scientific 
basis ; the founders of the doctrine were enlightened 
men, who stood on a high level of European culture.^ 
Strange to say, those champions of nationalism, advo- 
cates of the superiority of the Greco-Slavonian world 
over the Latino-German, grounded their theories on 
the acquisitions of that very western culture which they 
contested. After all it was an intensified form of the 

1 See the impression produced on Mackenzie Wallace by the repre- 
sentatives of the party in the seventies. (" Russia," vol. ii, chap, xxvi.) 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 233 

doctrine of the historical succession of nations which 
had lately been advanced by Schelling and turned to 
the benefit of the Germans by Hegel. Only with this 
difference, that what in the Germans was condemned 
as national conceit, because it stood on a purely ration- 
alistic basis without any religious element, being trans- 
planted to Russian ground, was set up as a mark of 
Christian humility. True it was, that, according to 
their teaching, providence had granted especially supe- 
rior gifts to the Russian people above other nations, 
and such dogmatic indisputability did this theory pos- 
sess in their eyes, in such sincerity of faith did they 
profess it, that there actually seems to be as much 
submission and humility in their belief as conceit or 
pride.i We will not linger over the particulars of the 
Slavophile doctrine, — the scorn of Europe, the antipa- 
thy for Peter the Great, and the whole Petersburg 
period of our history, the hatred of Rome and the 
Latin .Catholicism — all these negative elements were 
ridiculous and sterile ; but there was a good element, 
an element of love in the system, and this was fruitful 
and valuable in its results. 

The lower classes of the people, as having escaped 
the "pernicious influence of corrupting civilization," 
appeared to them still to exhibit the primitive national 
purity. It was an exaggerated idealization, yet its 

^ However contradictory it may sound, they assert Russia's greatness, 
but they assert it in humility. " We are great," they seem to say, " because 
we are humble." "Russian humility" becomes a favourite theme (C. Aksa- 
kov, Shevyrioff). The sin of conceit in them is immediately followed by 
the merit of humility; yet the consciousness of this merit does but aggra- 
vate the original sin. Thus in its most accentuated form (C. Aksakov), 
Slavophilism presents a vacillation between national pride and Christian 
humility, with no reconciliation possible. 



234 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

practical results were beneficent. All these scientists 
and writers had turned their intellectual resources to 
the study of the people, each one in his own field. 
Kireyevsky studied and collected specimens of Rus- 
sian folk-lore ; the poet Homiakoff studied history and 
ethnography — his researches on the conditions of the 
peasantry helped to elucidate the great question of 
the emancipation of the serfs ; Shevyrioff ^ gave a 
beautiful examination of ancient popular poetry and 
chronicles ; Valouyev, Pogodin,^ and others made valu- 
able researches in national history. Their conscien- 
tiousness and devotion to science assign to them a 
noble place among the workers of the country, and 
whatever posterity may think of their opinions, it re- 
veres the high qualities of their character and registers 
their scientific merits with gratitude.^ 

In these — their works in behalf of Russian science 
■ — ^the Slavophiles co-operated with their adversaries, 
those whom they had surnamed " Westernists." Both 
these parties preserved amidst divergency of opinions 
the enthusiastic love for science which had animated 

^ Shevyrioff seems to have been the first to employ the expression " rot- 
ten West." By a strange force of combination this did not cloud the clear- 
ness of his scientific sight; he made valuable parallel studies of Russian 
and universal literature, and he could not help appreciating at its just 
value the remark of Goethe. (See foot-note, p, 228.) 

2 Pogodin, like Shevyrioff, did not call himself a Slavophile, yet the 
tendency of his paper, the Moscovian^ did not differ much from the 
Slavophile ideas. He belongs to a group which later received the appella- 
tion of "soilers" (see p. 262). In science, Pogodin is known for having 
applied to Russian history what he called the " mathematical method." 

^ This of course concerns only those works in which the impartiality of 
the scientist is not affected by the predilections of the Slavophile. The 
idealistic picture which C. Aksakov gives of the paganism of the ancient 
Slavonians has no place in science. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 235 

young minds in their student days when opinions had 
not yet differentiated. An outburst of scientific activ- 
ity was displayed by numbers of professors and writ- 
ers, who, with incredible energy, in ten or fifteen years 
raised historiography and philology in Russia to the 
level on which they stood in Western Europe. Such 
names as Oustrialov, Solovieff, Kaveline, Kostomarov, 
Bestoujev-Rumin,^ Bouslayev,^ Sreznevsky,^ are re- 
vered for services rendered to science, and not only for 
having worked to the glory of science in Russia.* It 
is no longer the personal influence of one or another 
German or French scientist, it is the contact with the 
whole gigantic bulk of universal science which sets 
in movement the intellectual forces of the country, 
a movement in which European scientific celebrities, 
such as Ranke, Grimm, Niebuhr, Bopp, have not so 
much the significance of special teachers, as that of 
standard-bearers designating tendencies and methods. 

1 Historians. An honourable mention is due to their predecessor, 
Kachenovsky (1775-1842), who first vindicated the right of existence for 
"historical doubt." He was severe towards his predecessors. Karamsin, 
with his patriotic rhetoric, was harshly criticised by him for having pro- 
claimed in the introduction to his "History" that "knowledge of all the 
laws in the world — a German erudition, a wit like that of Voltaire, even a 
profoundness like that of Machiavelli — will not help a historian if he has 
not the talent of picturing events." (It is an amusing detail that in the 
French translation the words " vast erudition " are substituted for " Ger- 
man erudition.") 

- Historical studies of Slavonic and Russian languages. ^ Slavist. 

* We speak only of history and literature, but we might mention many 
a name in other branches, such as : Struve in astronomy, Redkin in law, 
Pirogoff in medicine, Mendeleyev in chemistry, Lobachevsky in mathe- 
matics. (On Lobachevsky, see the "Address by Professor Vassiliev," 
translated by Dr. G. B. Halstedt, Austin, Texas, 1894; see also his "Geo- 
metrical Researches on the Theory of Parallels," translated by the same 
(4th edition). 



/ 



236 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

Societies like the Archasographical (1834), Archaeologi- 
cal (1846), Geographical (1846), Imperial Historical 
(1867, with over ninety volumes of publications), spring 
up in the two capitals ; similar institutions are annexed 
to universities in other towns. ^ 

^ True to the precept of Belinsky, literature marches 
hand in hand with science. Tourgenieff, Dostoyevsky, 
Tolstoi, Goncharoff, and others of the young natural- 
istic school also unveil the country and its people. 
They formulate the best ideals and strivings of their 
contemporaries, point them out, and impose them upon 
society. National self-consciousness thus attained its 
final crystallization. The Crimean War, in 1853-1856, 
gave a blow to national conceit, but roused all hearts 
for the internal struggles of social and economical 

■ improvement. Nicholas I was succeeded by the Em- 
peror Alexander II in 1855, ^^^cl with him dawned the 
emancipation of the serfs. Hope and the conscious- 
ness of power kept the minds of men in a state of 
enthusiastic expectation. A breath of youthfulness 
breathes in the air. With the idealistic responsiveness 
of the " forties " in their hearts, the generation was 
ready to answer the monarch's call. In March, 1856, 
in an allocution to the representatives of Moscow, the 
Emperor's voice announced the abolition of servitude in 
Russia. On the 19th of February, 1861, the emancipa- 
tion was proclaimed. 

^ The Imperial Society for the Study of Nature in Moscow. The 
Moscow Society of History and Antiquities. The Warsaw Fine Arts 
Society. The Historical Nestor Society. The Imperial Society of History 
and Antiquity in Odessa; and others. 



LECTURE VIII 

(1861-1896) 

The " sixties." Alexander II and the emancipation of the 
serfs. Servitude in United States and Russia. Moral signifi- 
cance of the reform. The role of literature. The three chief 
representatives of the naturalistic school. 

Tourgenieff — the thinker overweighed by the artist. Rus- 
sian critique of the sixties. Tourgenieff 's "Fathers and Sons," 
Nihilism. 

Dostoyevsky — the artist overweighed by the thinker. 
Dostoyevsky's influence on his generation. Tourgenieff and 
Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky's teachings from the universal and 
the national point of view. 

Leo Tolstoi — the artist and the thinker in rivalry. Artistic 
power. Tolstoi's teachings. Spirit of dismemberment. " Tol- 
stoists." Influence of his teaching — its negative character. 
Societies and individuals. 



LECTURE VIII 

(i86i-i^ 



. . . and on the throne 
Do not forget the highest title — man. 

— JouKOvsKY (to Alexander II). 

Man is a greater name than President or King. 

— Channing. 

THE "sixties" in Russia, like the "forties," 
is a date which marks an epoch. Yet so 
rapid was the growth of the country in those 
twenty years, that the upHfting spirit which character- 
izes the "forties" appears almost child's play compared 
to the great movement which carried away the genera- 
tion of the "sixties." The "forties" were the product 
of a few, the result of the private activity of a group ; 
the "sixties" are the result of a universal activity, the 
product of a co-opera.tion of the government and soci- 
ety controlled by the imperative will of the supreme 
power. It is no longer a few individuals now, — the 
whole country in the persons of its most enlightened 
representatives determines the character of an epoch 
which is marked by such reforms as the emancipation 
of the serfs, the institution of provincial self-govern- 
ment, and the establishment of a new system of judi- 
cial proceedings.^ The enthusiastic response of the 

^ "Code d'organisation judiciaire de I'Empire de Russie de 1864," trad. 
€tannote parle C*^ J. Kapnist. Paris, 1893. 

R 239 



240 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

best forces of the country to the call of the sovereign 
makes of this time one of the finest pages of our 
history, and the name of Alexander II will always 
illuminate it with the radiant splendour of his noble 
character and the converging beams of his nation's 
gratitude.^ We will endeavour in this our last lecture 
to picture the spirit of that time. 

He who wants to study the present state of Russia 
cannot do so without tracing things back to the " six- 
ties," for here lies not only the origin, but the direction 
of the subsequent social and intellectual development. 
The forms into which the present society has settled, 
the respective situation of social classes, the ways 
opened for individual improvement, Russian science 
as it stands in our days, and Russian literature as it 
represents contemporary life, — are all the result of 
that period of our history. 

Opinions do not agree in their judgment of the 
period. The "sixties" were and are still much criti- 
cised. The liberal tendencies of the time, it is said, 
had unbridled imaginations and called into activity the 
worst elements of the country ; the revolutionary out- 
burst at the end of the " seventies " is interpreted as 
the natural evolution of the same spirit which brought 
forth the above-mentioned reforms. The tragic end of 
Alexander II is regarded by some as an expiation. It 
is not our object to judge; besides, events are too near 
and memories too fresh ; it will require time before peo- 
ple acquire the serenity necessary for a retrospective 
judgment. Yet one thing stands indisputable : the 
party which, professing principles of brotherhood, ter- 
rorized the world by using dynamite, committed the 

1 See C. Cardonne, "L'Empereur Alexandre II." Paris, 1883. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 241 

greatest of its crimes by killing him who had used his 
autocratic power for restoring the rights of human 
dignity to twenty-two millions of human beings. 

However great the act of Alexander II may appear 
from the universal point of view, it appears still greater 
if we consider the place it occupies in our national his- 
tory. "Servitude in Russia," says one of our writers, 
" had a universal significance. It determined all con- 
ditions of existence, from the most important to the 
most insignificant. It was a drag which absolutely 
hindered the country's development. No progress of 
institutions, no accumulation of national wealth, no 
spreading of learning in the masses, no improvement 
of family relations, of education, customs, notions, in 
a word, no improvement of any kind was possible so 
long as servitude existed." ^ You may see from this 
the character of the reform and its importance ; if the 
disease was of a "universal significance," its removal 
must have had the same significance, and must have 
also made itself felt, in " all conditions of life from the 
most important to the most insignificant." 

The emancipation of the serfs in Russia has often 
been compared with the emancipation of the negroes 
in the United States ; the two acts are comparable 
indeed from the humanitarian point of view ; yet if 
we consider the local conditions and the national sig- 
nificance of the two emancipations in their respective 
countries, we shall see that they essentially differ. In 
America the slave was imported from another conti- 
nent, he belonged to another race, he was no organic 
element of the great national body, — and slavery in the 

^ I. Ivanukoff, "The Fall of Servitude in Russia." St. Petersburg, 
1882 (Russian). 
R 



/ 



242 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

United States had an imported character ; it was not a 
disease, it was an excrescence ; it wanted not so much 
healing as amputation ; political life might have gone on 
even with slavery, for in America slavery was a com- 
mercial institution and not an historical result. Not so 
in Russia. Though during the first seven hundred 
years of her existence, Russia knew no servitude, though 
the first official act binding the peasant to the soil dates 
from 1597, yet so deeply did the disease penetrate into 
the people's consciousness that three hundred years later 
it seemed an organic part of the nation's body almost 
impossible to be removed without compromising the 
political existence of the country.^ 

The institution of servitude in Russia had been an 
act of political economy resulting from military needs. 
In ancient times the army was supplied by the landed 
proprietors, to whom land was given by the grand 
dukes, under the condition that at the first call they 
should appear equipped for war at the head of a detach- 
ment recruited among the peasants cultivating their 
estates ; but as the peasants, being free to pass from 
one proprietor to another, deserted to those who paid 
the most, the poorer landowners were soon unable to 
keep their engagements towards the government. As a 
consequence, in 1597, a decree was issued by Boris Go- 
dounoff binding the peasant to the soil which he culti- 
vated. "The bondage of the peasants," says Solovioff, 

^ The appearance of servitude at a comparatively late period of Russian 
history has often been regarded as proving that servitude was not inherent 
to the national constitution. Some historians even put it in connection with 
the beginning of foreign influence, and this is one of the chief arguments 
of the national party against Peter's reform and the "western tendencies." 
(For instance : Kayalovich, " History of Russian Self-consciousness." St. 
Petersburg, 1884.) 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 243 

"is a desperate resort of a country which feels itself to be 
in a state o^ helpless economical distress." ^ From the 
bondage of the worker to the land there was but a step 
to his becoming a bondman to the landowner ; such he 
became and such he remained throughout the seven- 
teenth and the eighteenth centuries. The military, sys- 
tem by degrees became modified, a regular conscription 
was introduced by Peter the Great, but the situation of 
the peasant remained unaltered. Legislation made sev- 
eral attempts at improving his condition, — they were 
paralyzed by customs and opinions according to which 
the peasant was regarded as movable property. No 
measures for improvement could be taken, ■ — the prin- 
ciple had to be rooted out. During three hundred 
years society suffered from this condition as from a 
disease, and, except for a few individual protests,^ peo- 
ple seemed scarcely conscious of the moral anomaly in 
which they lived. The moment to put an end to it 
came at last. 

When the Emperor's voice proclaimed the abolition 
of servitude, all that was noble and vigorous in the 
nation rose like one man, and proved that it was ready 
to assume the responsibility of one of the greatest acts 
in human history. For four years did the prepara- 
tory commissions work at the elaboration of the plan.^ 
During these four years twenty-two millions of human 

1 " Public Lectures on Peter the Great " (Russian) . 

2 Among these, Radischev, who in his "Journey from Petersburg to 
Moscow" (1790), gives pictures of contemporary peasant life of a most 
striking realism; then, the " Decembrists "; Poushkin in one of his poems 
expresses the wish to see " the chains of slavery fall at the sign of the 
sovereign's hand." 

2 See A. Leroy-Beaulieu, " Un homme d'etat russe " in " Revue des. 
Deux Mondes," October, 18S0. 



244 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

beings were expecting the decision of their fate.^ " I 
cannot admire and rejoice enough," said the Emperor, 
on the 28th of January, 1861, when handing over to 
the Imperial Council the project elaborated by the 
commission,^ " I cannot rejoice enough, and I am sure 
you all rejoice at the confidence and patience shown 
by our dear people on this occasion." They had not 
to wait long. According" to the Emperor's special de- 
sire, the proceedings had to be accomplished in the 
first part of February so that the law should be put 
into effect before the beginning of the summer labours. 
On the 19th of February the manifesto proclaiming 
the emancipation of the serfs was signed by Alexander 
II ; on the 5th of March it was read in the churches of 
both capitals ; ^ in the first days of April it was already 
known in all the corners of the Empire. That the 
peasants were not only emancipated but endowed with 
land, and that the reform did not cost the country a 
drop of blood, are two important points by which the 
abolition of servitude in Russia differs from the same 
act in other countries. The emancipation in Russia 
was an act of practical life, not only of theoretical 
satisfaction, for the emancipated peasant not only re- 
ceived the right of liberty, but the faculty of being 
free, freedom being but an empty sound if not war- 

1 The total number of the peasants at the moment of emancipation was 
21,625,609. 

2 The so-called "Committee of Redaction," who were entrusted with 
the final wording of the plan, worked during nineteen months, in which 
time they had altogether 409 sittings. 

^ The spirit in which the people accepted the reform appears from the 
fact that on this day the bars and saloons were almost empty. The same 
condition of things was noted in all points of the Empire on the days when 
the decree of emancipation was read. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 245 

ranted by property. This is why the labour question, 
which in our end of the century seems to have attained 
its most violent phase in the states of Western Europe, 
where millions of human beings cannot exist unless 
they renounce their freedom, will not arise in Russia 
for centuries to come. And Russia will not regret 
standing behind the rest of Europe in this case; she 
simply expects that when the hour of her labour crisis 
comes, the advanced countries of the world will already 
have shown her the way of solving the problem. 

No words can give an idea of the enthusiasm which 
inflamed the minds of men in these years. "There are 
epochs," says a contemporary, "when every man feels 
the presence of Providence in life, when in the depth 
of his soul he distinctly hears the present time answer- 
ing the demands of the past, and these answers bring 
peace and good-will to human hearts ; they reconstitute 
the sense, the truth, and the equilibrium of life, — 
epochs when forces suddenly revive and mature, when 
people with an intensified pulsation of the heart join 
in common work and common feeling. Blessed the 
generations which are destined to live in such times ! 
Thank God we are permitted to live in such a time ! " ^ 
This feeling of community was the great force which 
helped the workers of this time to triumph over the 
incertitudes of those who were afraid of the economi- 
cal and political difficulties presented by the reform ; 
the conservative element was strong, but its resistance 
was overcome by the unanimous outburst of the best 
forces of the country. It is a remarkable fact, well 
worthy of notice, that during all these years when di- 

1 M. Katkoff. Speech pronounced at the banquet given in Moscow on 
the 28th of December, 1857. 



246 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

vergency of opinions in society and official circles filled 
the air with stormy discussions, the whole press pre- 
sented a concordance of opinion which has never since 
been displayed in regard to any political or economi- 
cal question ; only one periodical pronounced itself not 
in favour of the emancipation, but of a " gradual im- 
provement of the peasants' conditions " ; ^ all the other 
organs of the press expressed liberal tendencies, and 
with their commentaries helped public opinion to accept 
the reform, and to appreciate its significance. 

We can hardly, in our day, form an idea of the 
change the emancipation wrought in the social aspect 
of the country. Seldom has a reform exercised such 
a destructive, annihilating action on that which it con- 
demned. When we now see the peasant taking part 
in the assembly of the provincial self-government with 
the same rights of vote and election as his former pro- 
prietor, who sits next to him without a vestige of antag- 
onism, how can we reconstitute in our mind those times 
when he was regarded as a thing to be bought or sold .-' 
Thirty-five years have passed, and servitude seems al- 
most relegated into legendary times ; those who saw it 
remember; the second generation scarcely understands; 
the third will not even be able to imagine. No educa- 
tional efforts of any school, of any preacher, of any 
propaganda, could have ever obtained so radical a regen- 
eration of the nation's soul, as the penstroke by which 
Alexander II signed the memorable act of the 19th of 
February.^ This is what the monarch meant, when in 
the above-mentioned allocution to the Imperial Council, 
he said : " Servitude in Russia was established by the 

^ The " Farmer's Magazine," the first number. Moscow, April, 1858. 
2 The pen is preserved in the Historical Museum in Moscow. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 247 

autocratical power, and the autocratical power only can 
suppress it." The Emperor, in these words, did not 
doubt his country, the best portion of which showed 
itself to be ready for the acceptance of the reform ; but 
he felt that years would be needed to bring the great 
masses to the same point by way of education. As it 
was carried out, the reform was imposed on the masses, 
and one generation sufficed to lift them up to the level 
of its conscious acceptance ; the reform was by itself 
the means of education. 

It is not our object to consider the economical and 
agrarian conditions which resulted from the emancipa- 
tion ; we will endeavour to follow up its influence on 
the tendencies of Russian thought so far as they ex- 
pressed themselves in literature. 

We have seen that long before the emancipation, 
scientific interest in national questions had been stirred 
up. Literature moved in the same direction ; as early 
as the forties, its best representatives introduced the 
peasant into fiction, and thus worked at the levelling of 
the social barriers which prevent the free contact of 
human souls.^ Lack of time will prevent us from 
embracing the whole bulk of Russian contemporary lit- 
erature, but we will examine by what means the three 
great representatives of the naturalistic school have 
sought to accomplish the task. Tourgenieff, Dostoyev- 
sky, and Count Tolstoi, all three, pursue the unveiling of 
the human soul, though each by a different way ; the 
two latter differ from each other so much the more as 

1 Contrary to the prevailing opinion, it is not Tourgenieff but Grigoro- 
vich who- first introduced the peasant in the novel ("Anton the Misera- 
ble," 1846). " He was the literary Columbus of the peasant," says a critic. 
" Tourgenieff became his Americo Vespucci." (Skabichevsky.) 



248 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

both have carried their opinions to the last Hmits of 
exaggeration. 

Tourgenieff, the refined " Westernist," arms himself 
with all the resources of an aristocratic education, and j 
lighting his way with the lamp of European culture, ]/ 
plunges into the unexplored depths of the peasant life. 
He uncovers the beauties of the human soul under the 
picturesque roughness of its surroundings, and the 
identity of feeling in his and the peasant's heart, with 
the power of responsiveness and sympathy in both, 
appear like a warrant of a distant yet inevitable fusion 
of all elements of human life from the heights of civili- 
zation down to the depths of the popular soul. 

Dostoyevsky, the sombre epileptic, disenchanted with 
" civilization," disgusted with the upper classes and all 
that comes from Europe, preaches individual self-obliv- 
ion ; he goes to the outcasts of society ; among murderers, 
convicts, and disreputable women, he discovers jewels 
of moral beauty, and, in an act of mystic veneration, he 
kneels down before the collective soul of the Russian 
lower people, as the only true remnant of Christian 
humility, predestined by Providence to regenerate the 
world. 

Just the contrary, Leo Tolstoi, reviling all civiliza- 
tion, undermining all authority, the self-made philoso- 
pher, shakes off all historical inheritance, every principle 
of collectivity in human life ; throwing down national, 
political, and social barriers, he abandons man to his 
individual self-improvement; knowing no limits in his 
work of emancipation, he finally breaks family ties till 
emancipated mankind is left the privilege of extinction 
through compulsory abstinence or voluntary sterility. 

Such appear the final points to which Russian thought 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 249 

is led through the works of the three great novelists. 
Their starting-point was one; all three aimed at un- 
veihng the reality of life. Tourgenieff and Dostoyev- 
sky might each have uttered these words of Tolstoi : 
"The hero of my novel, the one whom I love with all 
the force of my soul, whom I endeavour to reproduce 
in all his beauty, and who always was, and is, and will 
be beautiful — is Truth." ^ Yet truth, though single as 
an object of reproduction, becomes multiple when re- 
fracted by talents of different character. If the three 
writers are different as novehsts, they are still more 
different as thinkers. 

Tourgenieff, less than the other two, is to be measured 
by the standard of thought. He is, if not exclusively, 
at any rate first of all an artist ; the thinker in him is 
an annex to the painter, and generally the former does 
not entirely reveal himself ; he expects to be found out, 
commented upon, and brought into light by others. 
The whole of Russian critical literature in regard to 
Tourgenieff is nothing but an effort to discover the 
thinker under the enchanting vestments of the artist. 
The place given to his works from a social and political 
point of view is not so much due to the theories they 
set forth as to the intellectual activity they stirred up ; 
taken as an index of contemporary thought, they are 
less important by what they express than by what they 
called forth. Tourgenieff' s first appearance in print was 
greeted as an event of greater than a purely literary 
importance. The " Sketches of a Hunter " appeared 
in 1847. These charming stories had an idyllic back- 
ground of rural scenery, and the portraits of peasants 

^ " Sebastopol in December, 1853." 



250 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

and masters, which they present, framed in episodes of 
country life, are still regarded by some critics as a " po- 
etical protest" against servitude.^ A writer compares 
them in this sense to " Uncle Tom's Cabin." ^ Those 
who know both books will easily see the difference. 
There is no premeditated didacticism in Tourgenieff's 
stories ; the mere choice of his characters proves it ; 
he pictures good and evil wherever he sees it, whether 
among peasants or among landowners. A book meant 
to be a social or political sermon is apt to be one-sided. 
Tourgenieff, in his stories, is eclectic and unbiassed ; in 
his portrayal of people and customs he is as impartial 
a painter as in his pictures of nature. He loves nature 
in all its aspects ; pretty or ugly scenery equally fur- 
nishes him with material for a beautiful landscape ; just 
so human nature and social life. He merely unveils 
humanity ; by putting the two social classes side by 
side on the common ground of rural life in proximity to 
nature, he shows equally good and evil on both sides ; , 
and the fact that the good elements in the peasant's 
soul overweigh all other elements in the impression 
produced by the book does not make a protest or a 
satire of that which is simply a picture full of truth 
and sincerity. 

Tourgenieff's method is one of the most striking ex- 
amples of the power of art as such. He penetrates 
into the reader's soul exclusively by the channel of 
beauty, yet so pregnant of real life is this beauty, 
that once reaching our consciousness it becomes a fer- 

1 A. Nezelionov, "Tourgenieff in his Works." St. Petersburg, 1885 
(Russian) . 

2 Gr. Djanshiev, "An Epoch of Great Reforms." Moscow, 1894 
(Russian) . 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 251 

ment of feeling and thought.^ All his life the public 
sought to make the novelist responsible for theories, 
tendencies, opinions ; and the voluntary emigrant, who 
spent his days in Paris, and only now and then passed 
a summer in his Russian country place, watched with 
a certain pleasure the critical bustle which his writings 
had stirred up in his distant fatherland. Like those 
weak characters who do not dislike being reproached 
for views they do not possess, or who like to be praised 
for virtues they wish they had, so our novelist did not 
protest, and willingly accepted the role he was invested 
with by the critics. 

The Russian critical literature of the sixties had an 
important part in the intellectual development of the 
younger generation, and presents an interesting evolu- 
tion of itself. Belinsky's demand that art should explain / 
real life became the starting-point of the subsequent 
critics. On this basis a whole school of writers, for- 
getting that the master had put art and science side by 
side, and even ascribed to art the greater importance on 
account of the popularity of its means, by and by assigned 
to art a secondary, auxiliary part which finally deprived 
it of all significance except as a popularizer of useful 
knowledge. In the works of its chief representatives, 
Chernyshevsky,^ Dobrolubov, and Pissarev, the Russian 

^ This is undoubtedly the real reason of his universal success. This is 
wh)', at a time of strongly divided opinions, he has been equally celebrated 
both by the liberal and by the conservative party. This is why, in spite of 
the historical actuality of his novels, they do not lose their freshness as 
time goes on. This is why his stories, though essentially Russian in their 
subjects, exercise such a fascinating charm on the foreign reader. 

2 His essay, " On ^sthetical Relation of Art to Reality," was the start- 
ing-point of the new tendency. He is chiefly known as the author of the 
novel, " What is to be Done?" which called forth such a fermentation 



252 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

criticism of this time presents a gradual lowering of the 
ccsthetical standard to the advantage of the standard of 
practical usefulness. A work of art was considered 
only in so far as it was an illustration of life ; no intrinsic 
artistic qualities were required, and no attention was 
paid to them ; instead of being an analysis of the work 
of art, the critique became a study of the social condi- 
tions or scientific theories exposed in the work of art. 
Literature, as such, was declared almost worthless if it 
did not aim at some result of immediate usefulness. 
Pissarev rejoices at the idea that after Gogol, the writ- 
ers of prose obtain, preponderance over poets, and takes 
it as a happy omen that in their turn prosaists will have 
to cede their place to a more useful kind of literature 
than novels.^ 

This tendency could not but lead to a final rejection 
of all art ; it is evident that not only many forms of lit- 
erature could find no mercy before such exigencies, but 
whole worlds of man's creation had to be put outside of 
the pale, — as, for instance, architecture and music which 
could not answer the standard of immediate usefulness. 
The younger generation grasped with enthusiasm at 
these theories : they were encouraging, they were easy ; 
they saved the humiliation of bending to authorities ; 
they dispensed with reverence for that which others ad- 

among the younger generation. (Translated from the Russian into Eng- 
lish by Nathan Haskell Dole and S. S. Skidelsky [under the title " A 
Vital Question"], Boston; from the French by Benjamin Tucker.) The 
above-mentioned critics are often regarded as the promoters and founders 
of the revolutionary nihilism of later days. Yet this conception is some- 
what superficial. In their realism they are idealistic enthusiasts, but for 
being characteristic representatives of their epoch they cannot be made 
responsible for the anarchical aberrations of later years. 
^ " Flowers of Innocent Humour." 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 253 

mired. By and by criticism degenerated into simple ne- 
gation. Instead of going through the laborious process 
of artistic education which lifts us up to the understand- 
ing of a great artist's work, it was easier to declare that 
the fame of great artists was the product of preposses- 
sion, that there were no great artists, and that above 
all, art in itself was not worth regard. Reality pre- 
sented too hard problems for time to be wasted in futili- 
ties ; the practical exigencies of life were more important 
than any art, and after all, as a proverbial sentence 
of the time declared, " A pair of boots is superior to 
Shakespeare." To such absurd exaggerations did young 
turbulent minds carry the theories of their teachers. 
The levelling, democratizing influence of these ideas 
which had arisen on a ground of purely artistic criti- 
cism by and by took a wider extension and gradually 
swept away all acknowledgment of any authority. 

In a more or less exaggerated degree, with more or 
less alloy of political protest and religious scepticism, 
these theories were professed by a great portion of the 
young generation. For the first time they were de- 
picted in literature by Tourgenieff, who, in his novel, 
" Fathers and Sons," gave them the appellation of 
"nihilism."^ Young Bazarov is the first type of the 
kind in fiction ; he has been repeated by others. Gon- 
charoff in his " Precipice " gave a portrait of a nihilist 
with striking features of roughness and brutality. Dos- 
toyevsky in his " Devils " pictured a whole society of 
political conspirators. Yet Tourgenieff's hero is the 

1 In those days the word did not possess the terroristic colouring it 
received later from Western Europe, which made it synonymous with 
" anarchist." If we do not err, it is St. Augustine (" City of God ") who h 
first used the word " nihilist " to designate people " who believe nothing." 



254 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

• 

only lifelike reproduction ; Goncharoff's and Dostoyev- 
sky's types are not free of didacticism, whereas Tour- 
genieff depicts his hero with such Olympic impartiality, 
that even to-day the critics are not agreed as to whether 
the author approves or condemns him. A controversy 
was stirred up by the appearance of "Fathers and 
Sons"; opinions were divided among people belong- 
ing to the same parties ; some liberals praised the au- 
thor for being on the side of the " sons " ; others 
blamed him for sympathizing with the "fathers"; it 
was the same in the conservative camp : some greeted 
him as a violent reprover of the young tendencies, 
others reviled him for having ridiculed the elder genera- 
tion. 

The author himself, in his letters, with no great dis- 
crimination, simply kept up the flame of those who 
praised him. The fact is, that Tourgenieff had watched 
the type in its very first delineations, when it had not yet 
accentuated itself in those extreme forms which it as- 
sumed later ; he had watched it in the moment of its 
formation, when, full of energy and noble desire of useful 
activity, it only detached itself from the great mass of 
the older generation ; the protest at that moment was 
pregnant with promises which could not but excite sym- 
pathy, in spite of a certain arrogance and cynical in- 
difference to the old forms. No one could have guessed 
at that moment to what abnormalities the type would 
be led throughout its subsequent evolution. Pissarev, 
in his critique of " Fathers and Sons," says : "The sense 
of the novel is as follows : contemporary youths commit 
errors and fall into extremes, but in their enthusiasm 
they reveal fresh forces and honest minds . . . these 
forces and these minds, without any outside help, will 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 255 

lead them out on the right way and will support them 
in life." Alas! they did not support, at least, not 
all of them ; they led them out, but not the " right 
way," so long as it leads to destruction. Fresh forces 
and honest minds will have still to look for that right / 
way. 

These are the chief ideas brought to mind by Tour- 
genieff's work as a whole. We must mention still 
another literary peculiarity of his which is a symptom 
of the time, and stands in connection with a movement 
which also has proceeded to great exaggeration. In 
his novel, " On the Eve," Tourgenieff gave the first 
portrait of a woman whose interests extend beyond 
the exclusive circle of her home life. Helen is the 
first woman in our literature who in her love for her 
husband finds force enough to become his intellectual 
companion, not only in his family life, but in his work 
outside the family. She is a representative of those 
noble specimens of Russian female character who, with- 
out abdicating home, transfuse their love into their hus- 
band's whole existence ; who, without ceasing to be wife 
and mother, with equal intrepidity follow the masters 
of their heart into the abstract regions of science, into 
the struggles of practical life, into the gloom of Sibe- 
rian exile. Later this was exaggerated ; scientific inter- 
ests became a sort of protest against family life and 
brought forth specimens of girls who made it a point 
of honour to be anything except wives or mothers.^ It 
is perhaps the consequence of the richness of the Rus- 
sian virgin soil, which slumbered during so many cen- 

1 In regard to this movement, see a few remarks in " Higher Education 
of Women in Russia," by Pr. S. Wolkonsky. (" Addresses." Winship & 
Co., Chicago. Unity Publishing Co., 1893.) 



256 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

turies, that no seed can germinate in it without growing 
up to its extreme height.^ 

We now pass on to Dostoyevsky. If, with Tourge- 
nieff, the thinker disappeared under the artist, with 
Dostoyevsky the artist is almost screened by the thinker 
and the moralist. We will not penetrate into the pain- 
ful world of his creations. Those who have read the 
" Letters from the Dead House," or " Crime and Pun- 
ishment," have experienced and paid with the torment 
of their own soul, the terrifying fascination exercised 
by that crowd of lunatics, criminals, epileptics, suicides, 
and all the "Humiliated and Offended "^ outcasts of 
society, who throughout their doleful earthly agony 
proclaim the eternal beauty of the human soul. In 
spite of an awkward disproportion in the architectural 
structure of nearly all his works, in spite of the some- 
what clumsy shape of his overcrowded novels, the power 
and the direction of his talent make him a unique figure 
in universal literature. All the tendencies of his work 
converge to one point — to deliver the human soul from 
the oblivion to which it has been relegated by self- 
ishness, prejudice, and indifference of men. His whole 
work seems an effort to discover the primitive purity 
of the human soul under the worst aspects of misery. 
Nothing frightens him ; he himself augments the diffi- 
culties of his task ; he piles together details of social, 
physical, or moral degradation in most repulsive combi- 
nations,^ and yet a drop of pure crystal always emerges 

■^ On Tourgenieff, see Zabel, " Iw. Turgenief." Leipzig, 1884. 

2 The title of one of Dostoyevsky's novels. 

^ Only one work within our knowledge in the whole field of foreign 
literature can be compared to this side of Dostoyevsky's talent : this is, 
" Giovanni Episcopo," by Gabriele d'Annunzio, though the mystic atmos- 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 257 

from the slime and triumphs over darkness. Like those 
heroes of- charity who bring their help to lepers, so 
he goes to " humiliated and offended " souls and brings 
them comfort in the Christian acknowledgment of their 
human dignity. Calamity, illness, brutality, poverty, 
— he approaches everything with the same intrepidity. 
No obstacle is powerful enough to arrest this Living- 
stone of darkest misery. 

"We must not look on Dostoyevsky," says a critic, 
" as on an ordinary novelist, a talented and intelligent 
writer. There was something more in him, and just that 
something more constitutes his characteristic peculi- 
arity and explains his influence on others." ^ Dostoy- 
evsky's influence was immense ; contrary to Tourgenieff, 
who lived chiefly in his works, and whose figure to the 
end remained a riddle surrounded with mistrust, the 
author of " Crime and Punishment " became the most 
popular figure of his time ; more popular perhaps than 
Leo Tolstoi in our days, for his popularity was free 
of that party spirit which characterizes the followers of 
the latter. Like the flood of the ocean, the young 
generation rushed to answer his appeal. It was a 
noble, a beneficent movement. In a time when revolu- 
tionary ferment troubled the minds of men and shook 
the stability of faith and opinions, when the great 
anonymous monster of European anarchy was enrolling 
and engulfing so many "fresh forces," and "honest 
minds " among Russian youths, when hatred and de- 
struction were proclaimed the principles of the regenera- 

phere which emanates from Dostoyevsky's work, the religious beauty which 
floats round his most repulsive pictures, is totally absent in the Italian 
novel. 

^ VI. Solovioff, "Three Lectures on Dostoyevsky" (Russian), 
s 



258 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

tion of the world, — Dostoyevsky's words of Christian 
humility and love resounded like a prophetic warning. 
Coming from a man who had himself gone through 
four years of hard labour in Siberia/ these ideas ac- 
quired an authority of indisputableness which no man 
could venture to contest unless he wished to do wrong 
to the venerable writer.'^ He was more than a leader, he 
became a centre, for round his glowing heart diver- 
gency of political opinions disappeared ; with his ad- 
dress at the consecration of Poushkin's monument in 
Moscow,^ in June, 1880, he enraptured and carried 
away all parties : Slavophiles, Westernists, liberals, con- 
servatives, oblivious of divergencies, all joined in a com- 
mon enthusiasm. In later criticism, divergent opinions 
again accentuated themselves, and the address on Poush- 
kin was judged in different ways; but at the moment 
when it was delivered all were in accord — such was the 
power of this man. 

His small, meagre figure, worn out with torment and 
epilepsy, his sepulchral voice, and, in spite of it, a most 
wonderful elocution in which the inner flame contrasted 
with the ascetic rigidity of his appearance, exercised an 
almost hypnotizing fascination. In the last years of 
his life he several times appeared in public, taking 
part in literary evenings ; his last novel, " The Brothers 
Karamazov," was just being written, and many chapters 
of that book so full of horror, where religion and crime, 

1 Dostoyevsky had been exiled in 1849 for having been involved in the 
so-called " Petrashevsy affair." 

2 I remember the words of Prof. O. Miller, of the St. Petersburg Uni- 
versity. In one of his lectures, speaking of those who had had the inten- 
tion of carrying fetters before Dostoyevsky's coffin, he said, " No greater 
offence could have been done to his memory." 

3 See Lecture VI, p. 187. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 259 

asceticism and luxury, intermingle to form the most 
terrifying tragedy, were first made known to the public, 
through the author's own voice. I remember one of 
those evenings, in the winter of 1 879-1 880. Tourge- 
nieff was in Petersburg, and took part in the readings ; 
he was greeted and cheered with the enthusiasm we 
all feel in recalling the finest days of our youth, for 
strange to say, Tourgenieff will always remain a con- 
temporary of young people ; in our generation we love 
him for what we felt when first we read him, for never 
did we read him better than at sixteen ; we look back 
to him, we love him like a reminiscence, and people 
greeted him on that night like a dear companion of 
their best days. Yet the white-haired giant who 
charmed us with a lovely page of his " Sketches of 
a Hunter " had to cede the palm of primacy to the 
puny author of " Crime and Punishment," who made 
us shudder with a new chapter of the " Brothers 
Karamazov." Quite apart from their respective liter- 
ary merits, the personality of Dostoyevsky at that time 
had a greater power over the heart ; he was no reminis- 
cence, he was an active part of life, he was a portion 
of every single one of us, and he was greeted with the 
delirium of people who feel their whole nature, with the 
experiences of the past and the aspirations of the future, 
shaken to the root. When he died, on the 29th of 
January, 1881, people felt that something great was 
missing in the world, and in his own words they said : 
"The righteous man goes, his light remains." The 
light left behind by Dostoyevsky is one of the purest 
that shines on this earth ; it is one of the most precious 
legacies bequeathed by man to future generations. 

The standard by which we are to judge Dostoyev- 



26o PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

sky's work may appear from the following lines of Leo 
Tolstoi : " I never saw him, never had any relation with 
him, and all at once when he died I understood that he 
was the nearest, the dearest, and the most indispensable 
man to me. Never did I think of measuring myself 
with him, never ! the nature of what he did was such 
that the more he did, the better I felt. Art excites me 
to jealousy, intelligence as well, but the deeds of a heart 
provoke nothing but joy." ^ He was in literature an 
active and untiring worker for the establishment of the 
Christian principles of love, humility, self-abnegation. 
His whole system of ethics is contained in this sen- 
tence, " Every man is a sinner against every man." 
From a more strictly national point of view, by his 
theories he is often classified in a party which may be 
regarded as a fraction of the Slavophiles ; and as one of 
their chief arguments is that the upper classes have de- 
tached themselves from the national soil, and that they 
must return to the soil, they are designated with a name 
we might translate by " Sellers." ^ The filiation of their 
ideas would run as follows : the lower people as repre- 
sentative of primitive purity and the depository of real 
Christianity, uncorrupted by civilization, becomes an ob- 
ject of veneration. If we are bad, it is because we have 
lost that which they have preserved ; we must forget 
about Europe, think of nothing but ourselves, in patriotic 
humility, not in patriotic pride ; we must enter the way 
of individual self-improvement, we must become like 
our younger brethren, and when the whole country shall 
be regenerated by real Christianity, then we may think 

1 Letter to N. Strahov. 

2 Their chief representatives : Pogodin, Shevyrioff, the critic Apollon 
Grigoriev; in our days, N. Strahov, critic and publicist. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 261 

of others, and with patriotic self-consciousness of our 
regeneration undertake the great work of assimilating 
the rest of the world. In a monthly publication called 
"The Diary of a Writer," Dostoyevsky set forth these 
ideas with an ever-increasing emphasis ; warmed by 
interests of actuality and excited by polemics, his tone 
often became sarcastic, and at times deviated from prin- 
ciples of Christian humility. As a whole, "The Diary of 
a Writer" is not one of the finest pages of Dostoyevsky's 
work, but it presents an interesting picture of the most 
important questions of political, social, and literary life 
as they refracted themselves in the mind of one of our 
greatest writers. 

With the idea of individual self-improvement, we touch 
the source of the two chief tendencies of Russian thought. 
You have seen that with Dostoyevsky individual self- 
improvement becomes the starting-point of a process 
which gradually leads to social, national, and universal 
improvement; and, indeed, with him the individual 
soul is but a co-operating part of the collective human 
soul ; collectivity is the principle infused in the whole 
work of him who said that " every man is a sinner 
against every man." Individuality is but an instru- 
ment, the final aim is the great human family, and the 
only form for the final establishment of its happiness 
is one universal church, identified with social solidar- 
ity. Such were Dostoyevsky's ideas. 

But now comes another literary giant ; starting from 
the same point of individual self-improvement, he is led 
in quite the opposite direction. As collectivity is gen- 
erally obtained at the cost of individual compromises, as 
its benefits are overweighed by its deficiencies, the prin- 
ciple of collectivity is condemned and declared wrong as 



262 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

paralyzing the normal improvement of the individual ; 
ties of social, national, religious collectivity are relaxed ; 
the individual is abandoned to himself, and self-improve- 
ment, as leading to an inevitable regeneration of the 
whole through the partial regeneration of the units, is 
imposed upon man as his only duty, and the final aim of 
his aspiration. You see the difference between the two 
theories. With Dostoyevsky individual self-improve- 
ment leads to unification, it leads to division with Leo 
Tolstoi. 

Strange are the relations of the artist and the thinker 
in this wonderful writer. With Tourgenieff the thinker 
is latent, he is subjected to the artist; thought is the 
emanation, the result of beauty. In Dostoyevsky, they 
coexist : the thinker predominates, yet he does not ex- 
pel the artist; he takes much space, he is cumbrous, 
he makes it difficult for the artist, yet the latter forces 
his way through the material piled together by the 
former, and with a single scene of sublime psychologi- 
cal reality enforces pages of philosophy. In Tolstoi, 
the artist and the thinker also coexist, but they are 
rivals ; they never speak at the same time, they seldom 
endorse each other's words ; as a matter of fact, they 
sometimes do not agree at all. And yet, it is always 
the artist who is right ; the thinker raises his voice with 
an intrusive persistence, but the artist will not be out- 
done, and whenever he reappears in all the indisputable 
authority of his genius, his serene vision goes further, 
straighter, and higher than any philosophical lucubra- 
tions of the thinker.^ 

1 General Dragomirov, well known for his theory of educating the 
soldier and the troop (see "Theories du General Dragomiroff," Paris, 
Ch. Lavauzelle. " Le General Dragomirow," Art Roe, " Revue des Deux 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 263 

The literary figure of the great novelist is well known ; 
it is perhaps the first example in the history of uni- . 
versal literature of a writer who during his life has at- V 
tained to the fullest possible degree of fame, for he is 
the first great writer to whom it has been given to avail 
himself of all the means of diffusion offered by modern 
civilization. Whereas Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, 
had to wait centuries till they should be translated into 
all languages ; till printing should multiply them to 
infinity ; till the means of transportation should be so 
developed as to carry them into every corner of the 
world. Count Tolstoi had the luck of living in a time 
when just that very civilization which he so much re- 
viles,, grants him in the space of a few years the con- 
densed result of centuries ; his posthumous glory will 
not be greater than his popularity. Faithful to our 
programme we will not so much examine his talent 
and his ideas as their influence, and how far they have 
l^een accepted. 

Seldom has a writer's talent been so universally 
acknowledged as the talent of the author of " War 
and Peace." All parties, all schools, all generations, 
all nationalities, agree. Indisputable as life itself are 
his wonderful pictures of life ; they are broad and 
varied as life ; they are terrible as life, and as profound. 
No one has fathomed such secret springs of the human 
soul ; no one has followed it so close to the threshold 



Mondes." 1st November, 1895), examining " War and Peace," from the 
military point of view, makes note of many beautiful scenes contradicting 
false theories: "It is almost incomprehensible how the same man can 
be so excellent in painting pictures of battles and so unsatisfactory in ex- 
plaining the phenomena of war." M. Dragomirov, Analysis of " War and 
Peace." Kiev, 1895 (Russian). 



264 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

of earthly existence ; no one has with such inexorable 
persistency of analysis hunted up the microbes of insin- 
cerity which contaminate the human conscience ; no one 
has ransacked with such cruel serenity the yawning 
wounds opened by psychological vivisection. And 
every one who reads Tolstoi's books feels subjugated by 
this power, and yields to the omnipotency of that genius, 
which in the epic panoramas of his novels embraces 
armies, nations, countries, and which in a short tale of 
two peasants, where the repenting "master" transfuses 
his life into his frozen " servant," has embraced the 
whole of humanity, and in the narrow compass of a 
sledge, lost in a winter tempest and buried under the 
snow, has concentrated the universe and shown the 
gates of eternity. 

Such is the artist — with the greatest uniting power 
ever displayed by a novelist. But the thinker appears, 
and seems to make it his aim to undo the work of the 
artist. It is the most striking feature of Tolstoi's in- 
tellect, this contrast between the uniting power of his 
literature and the disintegration preached by his phi- 
losophy. The disintegration begins with his own per- 
son. The thinker detaches himself from the individual 
and becomes the analyzer, the judge, and the prose- 
cutor of the artist. The author of " War and Peace " 
is condemned by the author of "My Religion." Art 
is declared a plaything unworthy of those who really 
care for the prosperity of their brethren. Does not 
the lower people ignore Poushkin, Gogol, Tourge- 
nieff .'' Does it feel any necessity of knowing them ? ^ 
The upper classes must concentrate their activity only 

^ " Progress and the Definition of Instruction." 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 265 

upon such things as bring an immediate benefit to 
the masses ; all that does not aim at this is superfluous, 
and we must give up all superfluity. The thinker 
forces the artist to write fairy-tales for the peasants, 
and the artist is so beautiful in his universality, so 
unconscious of social distinctions in his picturing of the 
human soul, that these fair3^-tales composed for peas- 
ants become favourites with every one. The thinker 
forces the artist to give up painting, to drop the brush, 
to pick up the pen, and to become a philosophical writer. 
At this point the spirit of disintegration passes from 
his person into his theories, and finally into the opinions 
of those who were so unanimous in their judgment of 
the artist. In a few words, Tolstoi's teachings may be 
summed up as follows : their basis is non-resistance ' 
to evil; their dogma, the perniciousness of civilization 
as the result of collectivity ; their practical prescription, \ 
the dissolution of society to the benefit of the individ- , 
ual.i We will not pause to consider the good side of his 
preaching which, in the main, can be reduced to a cam- 
paign against human insincerity in all its manifestations 
— the author pleads his cause well enough himself. 
We will rather follow up its defects, and even not so 
much the intrinsic defects of the teaching as the de- 
fective side of its influence. 

The real followers of Tolstoi, the regular "Tolstoi- 
ists," are not numerous; they are people worthy of all 
esteem for carrying out within the limits of possibility the 

1 In a private letter kindly communicated to me by VI. S. Solovioff, 
Count Tolstoi thus formulates the practical application of this theory : 
"I think that there can be no other way for me to warm up the masses 
except the development of the greatest quantity of warmth in myself; any 
effort of mine aiming at another purpose is a useless waste of energy." 



266 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

prescription of abdicating superfluity, though the line is 
always somewhat hard to draw between that which is 
really necessary, and that which only seems so. The 
Count himself, at his country-place, gives rather strange 
examples of practical application. The author of " Anna 
Karenina" plunges his hands into clay, and builds stoves 
which afterwards are rebuilt by regular stove builders. 
Every day he takes an hour of ploughing, after which 
exercise he enjoys the satisfaction of eating his dinner 
" in the sweat of his brow." Of all this, is it the plough y^ 
and stoves the Count considers necessary, or is it the 
dinner he intends with time to eliminate as superfluous .'* 
And yet this practical side, however ridiculous in its 
innocence, is the only positive element of the teaching ; 
all the rest is negative, and just this negation which 
underlies the theory is the poisonous and yet attractive 
side of it, at least attractive for those who, themselves 
never having strained their energies in the cause of 
positive faith, feel glad to be absolved from any striv- 
ings by him who teaches that our ideal lies behind, and 
not before us. The relaxing of human energy, this is / 
the corrupting element of the theory. Modern society 
as it has crystallized itself is declared wrong : there- 
fore, all who had but a slight impulse of the sense of 
duty grasp at the theory as at a deliverance. Why 
should we work as long as the accomplishment of our 
best intentions depends upon a state of things which is 
wrong .'' All efforts of charity, all real enthusiasm, are 
undermined ; nihilistic laughter greets the best striv- 
ings ; a man has founded a hospital, but the hospital / 
depends upon the government, and governments are 
immoral, — consequently, the man is pitied as one who 
errs ; another gives a sum for charitable institutions ; if 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 267 

he were a real Christian, it is said, he ought to have given 
away everything — this does not count. Here, we re- 
peat, we do not judge the teaching, we simply state the 
results of its influence. People start from the point 
that, if measured by the Gospel, we are all insolvent 
debtors, and therefore those who make efforts to acquit 
themselves, at least of a portion of their debts, are 
ridiculed.^ The intellectual influence is no less relax- 
ing than the moral ; civilization is proclaimed perni- 
cious, and the ignorant by the fact of his ignorance 
considers himself above all others.^ Authorities are 
undermined, all workers of human enlightenment de- 
throned, people who have never read a line of philoso- 
phy declare with profession of competency that there is 
but one philosopher in the world, and this is Count 
Tolstoi.^ The religious influence is still worse. Tol- 
stoi constructs his teaching on a basis of scripture texts ; 
he and his followers consider that they have the mo- 
nopoly of the right comprehension of the Gospels, 
— and thus people who never believed anything grasp 
at the Gospel, not in order to learn, but in order to 

1 The limits of man's duties are so much widened, their object removed 
to such unattainable distances in his book, " Light is Within Yourself," 
that between the uselessness of their present activities and the unattaina- 
bleness of the ideals, all energies relapse into hopeless apathy, 

2 " Those who are on principle enemies of governmental organization 
are always, and necessarily, on principle enemies of culture." VI. Solo- 
vioff, " The Sense of the State," in " European Messenger," December, 1895 
(Russian). 

^ All critics who have applied the scientific standard to Tolstoi's philo- 
sophical writings are unanimous as to the instability of his philosophical 
vocabulary and the obscurity of his logical methods. A. Kozloff, " Letters 
on Count Leo Tolstoi's Book ' On Life ' " in " Questions in Philosophy 
and Psychology." Second year, Nos. 5, 6, 7. Moscow, 1890. B. Youse- 
fovich, " On the Philosophical Teachings of Count Leo Tolstoi " (Russian) . 



268 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

establish the inferiority of those who believe, but can- 
not live up to its commands ; on the basis of Chris- 
tianity, a sect is arising which supplants charity and 
love by criticism and scorn. 

And what is offered in all this as the positive beacon 
of hope ? Tolstoi himself says he cannot foresee what 
will become of the world if all men follow his pre- 
cepts ; ^ yet he asserts that our ideal lies " behind 
us " ; 2 this evidently means ages anterior to civilization. 
Only he does not determine the chronological moment : 
is it the age of iron or the age of stone .'' Or if he 
used the term in the sense of the age of the individual, 
will he say it was meant as the purity of childhood ? 
Again, the moment is not determined. When does im- 
purity begin ? To be completely free from impurity, 
we must return to those days when we yet did not 
exist. And indeed, in the " Kreutzer Sonata," mankind 
is given advice which is equivalent to suicide.^ A the- 
ory, the principle of which is dissolution, could not but 
lead to death. 

Dismemberment of society means retrograding of in- 
dividuals ; and where is the end of this gradual abdi- 
cation ? Shall we retrograde into the depth of centuries 
till we " return to earth " .'' Life is not possible with- 
out struggles ; plants struggle and expel each other ; 
society is the regulator of individual struggles. If soci- 
ety is wrong as it exists, this does not mean that it must 
be altogether destroyed or that the spirit of sociabil- 

^ " Light is Within Yourself." 

2 <( Progress and the Definition of Instruction." 

2 The implacabiUty appears cold and cruel of a teaching which in the 
name of love recommends the self-suppression of mankind for the benefit 
of an abstract theory. 



AND RUSSIAN LITERATURE 269 

ity is an element of nature which man must counter- 
check. ^ How long would Count Tolstoi have to wait be- 
fore individual self-improvement would suppress servi- 
tude ? There would have been no servitude, he will 
answer, had humanity liot shaped itself into societies. 
Maybe so, yet we cannot suppress the past, we have to 
work on the given basis, we cannot start the world anew ; 
servitude was a given fact, and once again, how long 
should we have had to wait for this given fact to die 
away ? The world as it exists is also a fact, a living 
fact, not a dead sentence which can be erased and 
another substituted for it ; and as it exists it lives, and 
nothing will arrest its further evolution on the basis of 
the past. The duty of the future is to regulate, not to 
suppress the continuation of the world's growth, there- 
fore future ages will work at the extension, and not 
at the extinction of that which has been acquired 
by preceding ages. For the past exists as well as the 
future, and cannot be forced into non-existence. Count 
Tolstoi says that the lower people does not know 
Poushkin, and therefore he concludes Poushkins are 
useless. But /le knows Poushkin, and he cannot force 
himself to forget him ; and so long as he remembers he 
must want others to know him, for the moment they 
know him, they will want him. 

No, Count Tolstoi shall not impede the blossoming 
of the world; however powerful the thinker, he shall 
never make anyone believe that the author of " War 

1 Dismemberment seems not only the aim of Tolstoi's theories, but a 
tendency of his very intellectual proceedings. This is what the above- 
quoted General Dragomirov says in speaking of Tolstoi's views on the 
elements working in war : " Does he not remind us of a chemist who, after 
having decomposed water and not knowing how to combine it again. 



270 PICTURES OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 

and Peace " is useless because unknown to the igno- 
rant ; the philosopher shall not force out the artist, 
and shall not prevent him from becoming, even in 
spite of himself, one of the greatest educators of the 
future generations ; the repeniant author will not be 
able to erase himself from the nst of the benefactors of 
humanity, for the artist in him has embodied in beauty 
too many great ideas, and " beauty, or the incorporated 
ideal," says our philosopher, " is the better part of 
our real world, the one which not only exists, but is 
worthy of existence." ^ 

would affirm that water does not exist in nature, and that there are only 
oxygen and hydrogen — two gases thoroughly different and having nothing 
in common." (Op. cit.) The interesting thing about this is that it was 
said while " War and Peace " was being written, consequently long before 
Count Tolstoi had entered the career of philosopher. 

^ VI. Solovioff, " Beauty in Nature," in " Questions of Philosophy and 
Psychology." First year, No. i. Moscow, 1889 (Russian). 



CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX 



Dates marked with a star (*) are not mentioned in the text 



862. 


. . Beginning of Russia. 


912 . 


. . Oleg's treaty with Byzan- 




tium. 


957- 


. . Baptism of Princess Olga. 


988. 


. . Baptism of Russia. 


1015 . 


. . t Vladimir. 


1054 


. . fYaroslav. 


1056 


. . "The Gospel of Ostromir." 


mo 


. . " Pilgrimage of the Prior 




Daniel." 


1113 


. . t Nestor. 


1125 


. . t Vladimir Monomah. 


1 147 


. . First mention of Moscow. 


1224 


. . Mongolian invasion. 


1240 


. . Destruction of Kiev by the 




Tartar. 


1328 


. . Moscow — chief town. 


1 341 


. . t John I, Kalita. 


1380 


. . Battle of Koulikovo. 


1439 


. . The Florentine Council. 


1462 


. . Accession of John III. 


1472 


. . Marriage of John III with 




Sophia of Palseologus. 


1497 


. . * Judicial Code by John 




III. 


1505 


. . . t John III. 


1547 


. . . Crowning of John IV, the 




Terrible. 


1550 


. . . Judicial Code by John IV. 


i';52 


. . Fall of Kazan. 



1556 
1564 

1584 
1584 
I59I 

1597 
1597 
1598 

1604 

1605 

I6I2 

I6I3 
1633 

1645 
1652 

1655 

1660 

1672 
1676 

1682 
1689 

1695 
1697 



. Fall of Astrakhan. 

. First book printed in Rus- 
sia. 

. t John the Terrible. 

. Conquest of Siberia. 

. Murder of Tsarevich Di- 
mitry. 

. fTheodor. 

. Peasants bound to the soil. 

. Accession of Boris Godou- 
noff. 

. Dimitry, the first impostor. 

. t Boris Godounoff. 

. Minin and Pojarsky. 

. Election of Michael Ro- 
manov. 

. The Slavo - Greco - Latin 
Academy. 

. t Michael. 

. Nikon — patriarch. 

. Revision of the Texts. 

. Scission of the Russian 
Church. 

. Birth of Peter the Great. 

. t Alexis. 

. t Theodor. 

. Beginning of Peter's reign. 

. Campaign of Azoff. 

. * Peter's first journey 
abroad. 



271 



272 



CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX 



1700 


. . Battle of Narva. 


1799 


, . Italian Campaign of Sou- 


1700 


. . The beginning of the year 




varov. 




transferred from Sep- 


1800 


. . First edition of the " Word 




tember to January. 




about Igor's Fights." 


1700- 


1721. "Northern War." 


1 801 


. . t Paul I. 


1703 


. . Foundation of St. Peters- 


1803 


. . * University of Dorpat 




burg, [per- 




(now Youryev). 


1703 


. . " Russian News," first pa- 


1805 


. . * University of Kazan. 


1709 


. . Battle of Poltava. 


1810 


. . Lyceum of Tsarskoye Selo. 


I7II 


. . Institution of the senate. 


1812 


. . "Fatherland War." 


I7I6 


. . Statute of military con- 


1816 


. . fDerjavine. 




scription. 


1818 


. . " History of the Russian 


I7I7. 


. . * Peter's second journey 




State " by Karamsin. 




abroad. 


1819 


. . University of St. Peters- 


I7I8 


. . t Tsarevich Alexis. 




burg. 


I72I 


. . Peace of Neustadt. 


1820 


. . " Rouslan and Ludmila," 


1725 


. . t Peter the Great. 




by Poushkin. 


1725 


. . Foundation of the Acad- 


1823 


. . " Eugene Oneguin," by 




emy of Science. 




Poushkin. 


1727 


. . t Catherine I. 


1825 


. . t Alexander I. 


1730 


. . t Peter II. 


1825 


. . " The Decembrists' " rev- 


1740 


. . t Empress Anna. 




olution. 


I74I 


. . Accession of Empress Eliz- 


1826 


. . . t Karamsin. 




abeth. 


1833 


. . * University of Kiev. 


1744 


. . f Kantemir. 


1835 


. . " The Revisor," by Gogol. 


1750 


. . fTatischev. 


1837 


. . t Poushkin. 


175s 


. . University of Moscow. 


1841 


. . t Lermontov. 


1756- 


1763. Seven Years' War. 


1842 


. . t Koltzoff 


1757 


. . * Academy of Fine Arts. 


1842 


. . "The Dead Souls," by 


I76I 


. . t Empress Elizabeth. 




Gogol. 


1762 


• . Accession of Catherine the 


1843 


. . Archseographical Commis- 




Great. 




sion. 


1765 


. . t Lomonossov. 


1846 


. . Archseological Society. 


1777 


. . t Soumarokov. [ety." 


1846 


. . . Geographical Society. 


I78I 


. . " Friendly Scientific Soci- 


1847 


. . "Sketches of a Hunter," 


1782 


. . "TheUnderaged,"by Von 




by Tourgenieff. 




Viezin. 


1848 


. . t Belinsky. 


1783 


. . Annexation of the Crimea. 


1S52 


. . tjoukovsky. 


1790 


. . " Letters of a Russian 


1853- 


1 85 6. Crimean War. 




Tourist," by Karamsin. 


1855 


. . t Nicolas I. 


1792 


. . fVon Viezin. 


1859 


. . " On the Eve," by Tour- 


1796 


. . . t Catherine the Great. 




genieff. 



CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX 



273 



i860 . . 


. " Fathers and Sons," by 


1874. 


. . * Compulsory military ser- 




Tourgenieff. 




vice. 


1862 . . 


. *University of Odessa. 


1877- 


878. * Turkish War. 


1864 . 


. Institution of the provin- 


1878. 


. . "The Devils," by Dostoy- 




cial self-government. 




evsky. 


1864 . 


. "Judicial Code of Em- 


1878. 


. . fNekrassov. 




peror Alexander II." 


1881 . 


. . t Dostoyevsky. 


1867 . . 


. * Cession of the Russian 


1881 . 


. . t Alexander II. 




territory in America. 


1883. 


. . t Tourgenieff. 


1872 . 


. " War and Peace," by 


1888. 


. . * Siberian University 




Count Leo Tolstoi. 




(Tomsk). 






1894 . 


. . t Alexander III. 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE 

(The names in parentheses are not mentioned in the text; all the others can be 
found out with the aid of the Index of names.) 



DYNASTY OF RURIK 
862-1598 

Rurik NOVGOROD Dimitry Donskoy 

Igor = Olga KIEV Bazil I 

Sviatoslav Bazil II the Gloomy 

Vladimir = Anna of Byzantium John III = Sophia Pal^ologus 

Yaroslav the Wise Bazil III 



Vsevolod Elizabeth Anna Anastasia John IV the Terrible 

I I = Anastasia Romanov- 

Vladimir Monomah John Theodor Dimitry 

(George) SOUZDALi 

(Vsevolod) 

Yaroslav 

(Alexander Nevsky) 

(Daniel) MOSCOW 

John I Kalita 



Simeon the Proud (John II) 

Dimitry Donskoy 



27s 



276 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE 



O 

<: 



o 



o 



II 



< ^ KH 



" rt • 



OJ 1— I 



<1 < 



o 

O 
Q 



5 -< 



w 



-^ D 



U 



INDEX OF NAMES 



Abolition of Serfdom, 241, 242, 243, 

244. 245, 246. 
Academy, Russian, 135, 139, 156, 169. 
" Adam's Lament," ecclesiastical poem, 

47- 
Aksakov,'brothers, Slavophiles, 228. 
Aksakov, Constantine, 84, 125, 233. 
Aksakov, J., 187. 
Aksakov, Serge, 229. 
Aldus Manucius, Venetian editor, 90. 
Alexander I, Emperor, 23, 24, 25, iii, 

179, 189, 208, 214, 215. 
Alexander II, Emperor, 26, 27, 228, 236, 

239, 240, 241, 244, 246. 
Alexander III, Emperor, 23, 27. 
Alexander the Great, 64. 
Alexander, Emperor of Byzantium, 

58. 
Alexandra Theodorovna, Empress, wife 

of Nicholas I, 217. 
Alexis, Tsar, 17, 20, 96, 97, 98, 100, 102, 

103, 104, 105. 
Alexis, Tsarevitch, son of Peter the 

Great, 120, 121, 133. 
Anastasia, Princess, daughter of Yaro- 

slav, queen of Hungaria, 58. 
Anastasia Romanov, wife of John the 

Terrible, 81. 
Andrew I, King of Hungaria, 58. 
Anna, Grand Duchessiof Kiev, wife of 

Vladimir, 38, 58. 
Anna, Princess, daughter of Yaroslav, 

Queen of France, 58. 
Anna, Empress of Byzantium, daughter 

of Basil the Gloomy, 76. 
Anna, Empress, Duchess of Courland, 

133. 137- 
Anna, Duchess of Holstein, daughter of 
Peter the Great, 123, 134. 



Anna, Duchess of Brunswick, regent, 

133- 
Annunzio, Gabriele d', 256. 
Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick, 133. 
Arakcheyev, Count, 215. 
Archeographical Society, 236. 
Archeological Society, 236. 
Arina Rodionovna, nurse of Poushkin, 

190. 
Aristoteles (see Fioraventi). 
"Arithmetic," by Magnitsky, 115. 
" Arzamas," literary society, 190, 191. 

Bacon, 92. 

Balashov, envoy of Alexander I to Na- 
poleon I, III. 

Baldouin, King of Jerusalem, 41. 

Baptism of Russia, 38, 39. 

Baratynsky, poet, 209. 

Barthelemy, 176. 

Basil II, the Gloomy, Grand Duke of 
Moscow, 76, 81. 

Basil III, Grand Duke of Moscow, 77. 

Basil, Emperor of Byzantium, 38, 70. 

Batioushkov, poet, 190. 

Bayer, scientist, 135. 

Bazarov, hero of " Fathers and Sons," 
by Tourgenieff, 253. 

Beaumarchais, dramatist, 153. 

Belinsky, V., critic, 85, 158, 162, 179, 
182, 184, 185, 186, 199, 200, 202, 228, 
230, 231, 232, 236, 251. 

Bestoujev-Rumin, historian, 235. 

Blankenstein, Sophia, Princess of, wife 
of Tsarevitch Alexis, 121. 

Bodenstedt, poet, 50, 209, 211. 

Boileau, poet, 137, 161. 

Bopp, scientist, 235. 

Boris Godounoff, Tsar, 15, 86, 242. 

77 



178 



INDEX OF NAMES 



" Boris Godounoff," drama by Poush- 

kin, 86, i88. 
" Brothers Karamazov," novel by Dos- 

toyevsky, 258, 259. 
Brueckner, A., 75, 99, 100, 108, 112, 

121, 134, 140, 147, 148, iss, 157, 159, 

160, 162. 
Buonaparte, 23, 173. 
Byron, Lord, 196, 211. 

Calderon de la Barca, 92. 

Carlyle, 131. 

Catherine I, Empress, wife of Peter the 

Great, 21, 123, 133, 135. 
Catherine II, the Great, 4, 21, 22,51,69, 

104, 123, 131, 132, 133, 134, 147, 148, 

150, 152, 154, 157, 158, 159, 160, 163, 

168, 170, 183, 189, 214. 
Catherine, Duchess of Mecklenburg, 

niece of Peter the Great, 146. 
Cervantes, 92, 263. 
Chancellor, Captain, 78, So. 
Channing, 239. 

Charles V, German Emperor, 77, 79. 
Charles XII, King of Sweden, no, 

III. 
Charles I, King of England, 152. 
Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein, 

123, 134- 

Charles Leopold, Duke of Mecklen- 
burg, 133. 

Chateaubriand, 174. 

Chernyshevsky, N. G., critic, novelist, 

251- 

Chetardie, de la, French envoy under 
Empress Elizabeth, 133. 

Chinguis Khan, 65. 

Christian IV, King of Denmark, 17. 

Chronology, Russian, 119. 

" Cioak," the, novel by Gogol, 224. 

Comedies by the Empress Catherine 
the Great, 155. 

" Confusion, Times of," 17. 

Constantine, Emperor of Byzantium, 38. 

Constantine the Porphyrogenitus, Em- 
peror of Byzantium, 58. 

Constantine Monomah, Emperor of 
Byzantium, 58. 

Constantine Palseologus, Emperor of 
Byzantium, 73. 



Constantine the Great, 120, 

Constantine, Grand Duke, son of Em- 
peror Paul, 150. 

" Crime and Punishment," novel by 
Dostoyevsky, 256, 257, 259. 

Crispus, son of Constantine the Great, 
120. 

Cyril, the Greek missionary, 39. 

D'Alembert, 149, 150, 

" Daniel's Pilgrimage," 41. 

Danilevsky, 9, 124. 

Dante, 263. 

Dashkoff, Princess, president of the 
Academy of Science, 148, 156. 

" Dead Souls," novel by Gogol, 220, 
225, 226, 227. 

" December Revolution," 215. 

Delvig, poet, 172, 208, 209, 212. 

" Demon," poem by Lermontov, 211. 

" Departure from the Theatre," dra- 
matic scene by Gogol, 225. 

Derjavine, G. R., poet, 22, 155, 156, 
157, 158, 163, 164, 170, 172, 183, 
184. 

Descartes, 92. 

" Devils," novel by Dostoyevsky, 253. 

" Diary of a Writer," by Dostoyevsky, 
261. 

Diderot, 149, 150. 

Dimitry Donskoy, Grand Duke of Mos- 
cow, 14, 68, 71. 

Dimitry, son of John the Terrible, 15, 
86. 

Dimitry, impostors, 15, 86. 

Dimitry of Rostoff, Metropolitan, loi. 

" Distress from Too Much Intellect," 
comedy by Griboyedov, 208. 

Dobrolubov, critic, 251. 

Dostoyevsky, 5, 202, 208, 218, 236, 247, 
248, 249, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 
261, 262. 

Dragomirov, General, 262, 269. 

Edward VI, King of England, j^, 78. 

Elisabeth, Princess, Yaroslav's daugh- 
ter, queen of Norway, 58. 

Elizabeth, Empress, 21, 123, 124, 140, 
145, 146, 160. 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, 14, 79. 



INDEX OF NAMES 



279 



Emerson, 3, 167. 

Emperor, title of, assumed, 117. 

Eugene IV, Pope, 76. 

" Eugene Oneguin," novel by Poushkin, 

188, 189, 192, 209, 211. 
Euler, mathematician, 141. 
■" Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka," 

novel by Gogol, 223. 

" Family Chronicle," by C. Aksakov, 

229. 
"Fathers and Sons," novel by Tour- 

genieff, 253, 254. 
" Faust," by Goethe, 229. 
■" Felitsa," ode by Derjavine, 156. 
Ferdinand the Catholic, 65. 
Fet, A., 227. 

" Figaro, Marriage of," 153. 
Filaret, Patriarch, 16. 
Fioraventi, Aristoteles, architect, 76. 
Fletcher, Giles, 78. 
" Forties," the, an epoch, 227, 230, 236, 

239- 
Franklin, Benjamin, 152. 
Frederick IV, Emperor of Germany, 

75- 
Frederick the Great, 120, 125, 146, 147, 

ISO- 
Frederick William of Brandenburg, 

125. 
Frederica, Princess of Anhalt Zerbst 

(Catherine the Great), 134, 147. 
Friendly Society, 170. 

Galileo, 92. 

Galitzin, Prince, Field Marshal, 107. 

Galitzin, Prince Vasili, 104. 

Geoffrin, Madame, 149. 

Geographical Society, 236. 

" German Suburb" (Moscow), 100. 

Glinka, M., 184. 

Goethe, 35, 158, 169, 203, 228, 229. 

Gogol, N. v., 5, 26, 51, 88, 183, 202, 207, 

208, 212, 217, 218, 219, 220, 223, 226, 

227, 230, 252, 264. 
Golovkin, chancellor, 117. 
Goncharoff, I. A., novelist, 236, 253, 

254- 
GorchakofF, Prince, chancellor, 172. 
Granovsky, professor, historian, 228. 



Gregory, Godfried, clergyman, 103. 
Griboyedov, A. S., dramatist, 208. 
Grigorovich, A. V., novelist, 247. 
Grimm, Friedrich Melchior, Baron, 

cyclopedist, 149, 150, 152, 160, 235, 
Gustave Adolphus of Sweden, 17. 

Hadrian, Patriarch, 114. 

Henckel, scientist, 139. 

Hapgood, Isabel F., 50. 

Harold, King of England, 58. 

Harold, King of Norway, 58. 

Hastings, princess of, 14. 

Hegel, philosopher, 229, 233. 

Helen, heroine of " On the Eve," by 

Tourgenieff, 255. 
Heraskov, poet, 171. 
Herberstein, Baron, German envoy, "JT. 
Herder, scientist, 176. 
Herodotus, 31, 32, 64. 
Hilferding, writer, 49. 
" History of the Russian State," by 

Karamsin, 25, 55, 175, 179, 190. 
" History," by Kourbsky, go, 91. 
Holy Alliance, 215. 
Homiakoff, A. S., 234, 
Hugo, Victor, 208. 
" House-builder," by Sylvester, 91. 
" Humiliated and Offended," by Dos- 

toyevsky, 256. 

Igor, Prince of Kiev, 50, 91, 

Ilarion, Bishop, writer, 41. 

Imperial Historical Society, 236. 

" Inspector," the, comedy by Gogol, 

208, 217, 224, 225, 226. 
Isabella of Spain, 73. 
Isidor, Metropolitan of Moscow, 76, ij. 

James I, King of England, 17. 

John I, Kalita, Grand Duke of Mos- 
cow, 67. 

John III, Grand Duke of Moscow, 14, 
65. 69, 70, 72, 73. 74. 75. 76, 17, 80, 81. 

John IV, the Terrible, Tsar, 14, 69, 70, 
71, 75. 77, 78, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 90, 
91, 98, 124, 137. 

John V, Tsar, brother of Peter the 
Great, 17, 20, 105, 107, 108, 133. 

John VI, infant Emperor, 133, 134. 



28o 



INDEX OF NAMES 



John Palseologus, Emperor of Byzan- 
tium, 76. 

Joseph 11, Emperor of Austria, 152. 

Joulcovsky, V. A., poet, 25, 172, 173, 
175, 181, 182, 183, 184, 190, 191, 212, 
213, 217, 239. 

Kachenovsky, M. T., historian, 235. 

Kant, 176. 

Kantemir, Prince, writer, 137, 158. 

Karamsin, N., writer, 25, 41, 55, 145, 
172, 173, 17S, 176, 178, 179, 180, 190, 
203, 213. 

Katlioff, M., 180. 

Kavelin, historian, 235. 

Kayalovich, 242. 

Kertch Museum, 32. 

Kireyevslcy, writer, Slavophile, 234. 

Klinger, poet, 33. 

Kluchevsky, professor, 54. 

Koltzoff, A. v., poet, 26, 212, 213, 214, 
216, 217. 

Kostomarov, historian, 235. 

Kotoshikin, G., 162. 

Koulikovo, Battle of, 68, 91. 

Kourbsky, Prince, writer, 83, 90. 

Kraptovitsky, secretary of Catherine 
the Great, 152. 

Kremlin, the, 76, 102. 

" Kreutzer Sonata," by Count Leo Tol- 
stoi, 268. 

Kriidener, Madame de, 214. 

Kryloff, I. A., fabulist, 191. 

Laharpe, philosopher, 150, 214. 

Lafayette, General, 152. 

Lavater, 175, 176. 

Lefort, Admiral Francois, 115. 

Leger, Louis, 39, 43, 46, 96. 

Leibnitz, 115. 

Lermontov, M. Y., poet, 26, 196, 209, 

210, 211, 212, 230. 
Leroy-BeauUeu, A., 7, 74, 96, 117, 126, 

243- 
Lessing, 174. 
" Letters from the Dead House," by 

Dostoyevsky, 256. 
" Letters of a Russian Tourist," by 

Karamsin, 175, 176. 
Levesque, 176. 



" Lives of Saints," by the Metropolitan 

Makarius, 91. 
Lobachevsky, mathematician, 235. 
Lomonossov, Michael, scientist, poet, 

36, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 

144, 155, 156, 158, 169, 17s, 211. 
Louis XIII, King of France, 17. 
Louis XV, King of France, 20. 
Louis XVI, Kmg of France, 152. 
Lope de Vega, 92. 
Lopouhin, Eudoxia, first wife of Peter 

the Great, 120. 
Luther, 169. 



Makarius, Metropolitan, writer, 90, 91, 

Macaulay, Lord, 114. 

Macdonald, 22. 

Mahomet II, Sultan, 65. 

Mamay, Tartar Khan, 68, 69, 71. 

Marcello, doge, 76. 

Maria Theodorovna, Empress, wife of 

Paul I, 191. 
Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 

146. 
Martha (Marfa) Skavronsky, wife of 

Peter the Great, 123. 
Mary, Queen of England, 78. 
Magnitsky, mathematician, 115. 
Massena, 22. 

Matveyev, Artamon, 17, 104. 
Maupertuis, philosopher, 150. 
Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, 75, 

77- 
Maximus the Greek, learned monk, 90. 
Maykov, A. N., poet, 227. 
Mendeleyev, chemist, 235. 
Menshikov, Prince, 107, 123. 
Merimee, Prosper, 86, 201. 
Metternich, Austrian prime minister, 

215. 
Methodius, Greek missionary to the 

Moravians, 39. 
Michael Romanov, Tsar, 16, 17, 20, 83, 

95. 96- 
Michael of Chernigov, Prince-martyr, 

66. 
Miklosich, grammarian, 34, 44. 
Miller, Dr. Oreste, 258. 
Milton, 127. 



INDEX OF NAMES 



Minin, 15, 16. 

MoliSre, 103, 161. 

Montaigne, 92. 

Morfil, W. R., 78. 

" Moscow Review," 176. 

Moscow University, 170, 171, 227. 

Mouromets, Ilia, epic hero, 48. 

Nadejdin, professor, 227. 

Napoleon I, 23, 24, 51, 102, iii, 154, 

173, 189, 197, 214. 
Napoleon III, 216. 
Narishkin, Nathaly, mother of Peter 

the Great, 105. 
Narva, Battle of, no. 
Naschokin, Ordyn, 104. 
Nekrassov, N. A., poet, 213. 
Nestor, chronicler, 31, 43,44. 45- 
Neuville, de la, Polish envoy, 104. 
" Nevsky Avenue," novel by Gogol, 

224. 
Nicholas I, Emperor, 25, 180, 215, 225, 
236. 

Nicholas II, Emperor, 75. 

Nicolai, scientist, 176. 

Niebuhr, historian, 235. 

Nikitin, I. S., poet, 213, 214. 

Nikon, patriarch, 17, 97, 98, 99. loi- 

Novikov, N. I., writer, publisher, 170, 

171. 175- 



Odoyevsky, Prince, writer, 217. 

" Old-fashioned Farmers," novel by 

Gogol, 224. 
Gleg, Prince of Kiev, 58. 
Olga, Grand Duchess of Kiev, 37, 38, 

58. 
" On the Eve," novel by Tourgenieff, 

255- 
Ookhtomsky, Prince, 75. 
Osliab, monk, 68. 
" Ostromir, Gospel of," 43. 
Otto the Great, German Emperor, 58. 
Otto II, German Emperor, 58. 
Oustrialov, N., 108. 
Ouvarov, Minister of Public Education, 

191. 

Paul I, Emperor, 22, 23, 171. 
Paul II, Pope 73. 



Pavlov, professor, 227. 
Peresvet, monk, 68. 

Peter the Great, 4, 5, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 
25, 75, 84, 95, 97, 100, 103, 104, 105, 
106, 107, 108, 109, iio. III, 112, 113, 
114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 
122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 131, 132, 133, 
134, 136, 140, 142, 146, 15s, 163, 168, 
189, 196, 232, 233, 243. 
Peter II, Emperor, 21, 121, 133. 
Peter III, Emperor, 21, 123, 147, 148. 
Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow, 67. 
Philip, King of England, 78. 
Pissarev, D. I., critic, 251, 252, 254. 
Platner, poet, 176. 
Pogadin, M. P., historian, 228, 234. 
Pojarsky, Prince, 15, 16. 
Polonsky, poet, 227. 
Poltava, Battle of, 95. 
Pompadour, Marquise de, 146. 
" Poor Lizzie," novel by Karamsin, 177. 
" Portrait," the, novel by Gogol, 224. 
Potiomkin, Prince, 157, 162. 
Pougachof, the false Peter III, 148. 
Poushkin, 18, 22, 26, 63, 86, 140, 148, 
149, 157, 164, 169, 170, 172, 173, 179, 
184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 
192, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 207, 
208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 214, 217, 218, 
219, 220, 223, 228, 230,258, 264, 269. 
" Precipice," the, novel by Goncharoff, 

253- 

Printing-press, founding of first, 90. 

" Prodigal Son," the, comedy by Sim- 
eon of Polotsk, 103. 

Prokopovich, Theophan, Metropolitan, 
123, 136. 

Pseudo-classicism, 141. 

Pypin, A. N., 136, 141, 155, 171. 176, 179. 
228. 



Rabelais, 92. 

Ralston, W. R. S., 7, 49, 55, 213. 

Rambaud, 7, 50, 125. 

Ranke, historian, 235. 

Razoumovsky family, 139, 140. 

" Revisor," the, comedy by Gogol (see 

" Inspector"). 
Richardson, novelist, 174. 
Romanov, dynasty, 16, 81, 86, 89, 96. 



INDEX OF NAMES 



Ronsard, poet, i6i. 

Rossett, Mademoiselle, maid-of-hon- 

our, 217. 
Rostovtsev, Count, 26. 
Roumiantsov, Count, 157. 
" Rouslan and Ludmila," poem by 

Poushkin, 184, 185. 
Rousseau, J. J., 153, 174, 176. 
Rurik, Prince of Novgorod, 12, 15, 25, 

36,37-47.53-58,81,83,86. 
" Russian Law," 13, 53, 54. 

Saint Petersburg founded, no. 

Saint Serge, prior, 68. 

Saint Simon, 20. 

Satires by Kantemir, 137. 

Schelling, philosopher, 227, 229, 233. 

Schlegel, 141. 

Schloezer, historian, 44, 135. 

Schuyler, Eugene, 96, 125. 

Senate, Institution of, 115. 

Shakespeare, 10, 92, 167, 174, 207, 263. 

Sheremetiev, Field Marshal, no. 

Shevyrioff, writer, 45, 51, 227, 234. 

Shishkoff, 190, 215. 

Sigismund, King of Poland, 15, 79. 

Simeon the Proud, Grand Duke of Mos- 
cow, 67. 

Simeon of Polotsk, writer, 17, 103. 

" Sixties," the, an epoch, 239, 240. 

Sixtus IV, pope, 73. 

Skavronsky, Martha (see Catherine I). 

" Sketches of a Hunter," by Tourge- 
nieff, 249, 259. 

Slavonians, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 43. 

Slavophiles, 25, 84, 125, 190, 229, 230, 

233- 234- 
" Soilers," fraction of the Slavophiles, 

260. 
Solovieff, S., historian, 8,33, 34, 65, 102, 

106, 235. 
Solovioff, Vladimir, philosopher, 8, 228, 

235, 265, 270. 
Sophia Palaeologus, wife of John III, 

73- 
Sophia, Princess Regent, sister of Peter 

the Great, 17, 20, 100, 103, 104, 105, 

107. 
Sophia, Princess of Brunswick Blank- 

enstein, wife of Tsarevitch Alexis, 121. 



Soumarokov, A., dramatist, 86, 143, 

14s- 157, 160- 161. 
Souvorov, Count, 22, 23, 148, 157. 
Sreznevsky, slavist, 235. 
Stael, Madame de, 213. 
Sterne's " Sentimental Journey," 173. 
" Story about Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan 

Nikoforovich," by Gogol, 224. 
Struve, astronomer, 235. 
Sviatoslav, Grand Duke of Kiev, 37. 
Sylvester, priest, author of " Domos- 

troi," 91. 

Tacitus, 32, 33, 34. 

"Taras Boulba," by Gogol, 217, 224. 

Tartar Invasion, 13, 14, 63, 64, 65, 66, 
91. 

Tatischev, P. A., historian, 136, 137. 

Theodor, Tsar, son of John the Terri- 
ble, 86, 137. 

Theodor, Tsar, son of Alexis, 17, 97, 
100, 103, 105. 

Theophano, wife of Otto II, 58. 

Timmermann, 113. 

Tolstoi, Count Alexis, 86, 87, 227. 

Tolstoi, George, 78, 79. 

Talstoi, Count Leo, 5, 26, 169, 189, 208, 
215, 218, 227, 236, 247, 248, 249, 257, 
260, 262, 263, 264, 265, 267, 268, 269. 

" Tolstoiists," 265. 

Tourgenieff, 5, 26, 188, 208, 212, 218, 
236, 247, 248, 249, 250, 253, 254, 255, 
256, 257, 259, 262, 264. 

Tourgenieff, President of the Moscow 
University, 172. 

Trediakovsky, writer, 143, 144, 145, 183. 

Tsar, title of, 80. 

Tschaikowsky, P., 198. 

Ulrich, Prince Charles Peter of Schles- 

wig-Holstein, 134. 
" Under-aged," the, comedy by Von 

Wiezin, 161, 162. 

Valouyev, historian, Slavophile, 234. 
Varegues, the, 37, 55. 
Venevitinov, D. V., poet, 230. 
Viollet-le-Duc, 76. 

Viozemsky, Prince, writer, 7, 160, 191, 
217. 



INDEX OF NAMES 



28- 



Vladimir, Grand Duke of Kiev, baptizer 
of Russia, 13, 38, 39, 47, 58. 

Vladimir Monomah, Grand Duke of 
Kiev, 13, 39, 48, 53, 56, 57, 58. 

Vladislav, son of Sigismund of Poland, 

15- 
Vogue, Vicomte Melchior de, 121, 202. 
Voltaire, iii, 127, 145, 146, 149, 150, 

151, 153, 154, 176, 235. 
Von Wiezin, writer, 155, 161, 162. 
Vsevolod, Grand Duke of Kiev, father 

of Vladimir Monomah, 57. 

Wallace, Mackenzie, 7, 126, 232. 

" Wanderings of God's Mother through 
the Tortures," ecclesiastical poem, 42. 

" War and Peace," by Count Leo Tol- 
stoi, 189, 263, 264, 269. 



" Westernism," 125, 232. 
Wieland, writer, 176. 
Will of Peter the Great, iii, 123. 
"Will of Vladimir Monomah," 13. 
Winckelmann, 174. 
Wolf, Christian, philosopher, 139. 
Wolkonsky, Prince P., 185. 
Wolkonsky, Prince S., 187, 191, 255. 
"Word about Igor's Fights," 50, 51, 
91. 

Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Duke of 

Kiev, 13, S3, 54, 56, 58. 
Yaroslavna, Princess, wife of Igor, 50. 
Yazykov, N. M., poet, 209. 

" Zadonschina," epic poem, 91. 



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